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ON THIS PAGE ARE THE

•PRECIS
•ALPHABETICAL LIST
AND THE
•CHRONOLOGICAL LIST
AND THE
•ENTIRE POSTER COLLECTION

AND BELOW THE POSTERS IS THE
•NOT QUALIFYING LIST

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PRECIS:

OBJECT is to list all sf films released in US in 1950s, and aid in identification of items in list with images of low-res small-sized copies of earliest US-release posters which should be a significant contribution to user's understanding of list.

MUST contain sf element. In movies, sci-fi is sf. Magic is not sf. Cryptozoology is not sf.

BUT IF sf element is too fantastic then title in synopsis section is noted as FANTASY,

IF the sf element is fantasy version of a thing which already existed in science form, it's not enough. Dinosaurs existed, cave people existed, but without science basis for their co-existence or scientific observation of them it's just not sf,

YET I have looked hard for however-stringy an sf angle and passed as many as possible.

MUST be feature film, reformatted serial okay, no re-releases from previous decades.

MUST have US theatrical release date between 12:01am January 1 1950 through 12:00pm December 31 1959.

In ALPHABETICAL LIST article "the" has been omitted when first word in title. Initial "The"s do appear in chronological list.

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST comprises US release year, full title, alternate 1950s first release title(s), foreign origin and original foreign title and year if useful, details of production including notes about sf-centric personnel, short synopsis.

Technical notes of production include:

•Running time in US release, M=minutes

•Aspect ratio of intended projection, all are Academy Standard (1.37:1) unless noted--all noted at 1.85:1 thru 2.00:1 inclusive may have been shot non-anamorphic (and thus intended for cropping of film frame either by film gate at projection, or in lab for the few noted as Superscope), greater than 2.00:1 are CinemaScope unless noted (Regalscope was CinemaScope but on black and white camera stock, Hammerscope/Tohoscope were proprietory CinemaScope but occasionally in smaller aspect)

•All films are black and white unless noted CLR, color is Technicolor unless noted

•Production company/Distribution company (those which existed for that production only are noted as "1-shots," major studios abbreviated: Col=Columbia, Fox=20th Century Fox (NB: Regal was Fox's in-house Lippert production unit), MGM=Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Par=Paramount, RKO=RKO Radio Pictures, UA=United Artists, UI=Universal International, Uni=Universal, War=Warner Brothers)

Films are set in then-contemporary times unless otherwise noted.

Some spoilers were inevitable, but discretion reigned where possible and occasionally gave rise to clever dissembling, ahem.

Tried to note type of spaceship, and whether aliens and creatures are monstrous (meant to be non-humanoid), monstrous-humanoid (non-human but based on human physically) or humanoid (no terrific difference from humans). Robots are humanoid in design unless noted. Notation "nps" indicates a film SFFot50s does not recall having seen (2 films).

NOT QUALIFYING lists key films whose absence from list you might wonder about.

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO E-MAIL corrections/additions. kcor1953 "at" lycos.com

ORIGINAL MATERIAL and presentation format © 2011-14 Chris Ed Rock
ALPHABETICAL:

1000 Years From Now see Captive Women 1952
1984 1956
20 Million Miles to Earth 1957
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea 1954
27th Day 1957
30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock 1959
4D Man 1959
Abbott and Costello Go to Mars 1953
Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 1953
Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man 1951
The Abominable Snowman 1957 UK
Alligator People 1959
Amazing Colossal Man 1957
Angry Red Planet 1959
Astounding She-Monster 1957
Atomic Kid 1954
Atomic Man 1956 UK Timeslip 1955
Atomic Submarine 1959
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman 1958
Attack of the Crab Monsters 1957
Attack of the Giant Leeches 1959
Attack of the Puppet People 1958
Aztec Mummy Against the Humanoid Robot 1958
    MEXICO see Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy 1959
Beast From 20,000 Fathoms 1953
Beast With a Million Eyes 1955
Beautiful Dreamer 1952 MEXICO
Beginning of the End 1957
Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla 1952
Black Scorpion 1957
Black Sleep 1956
Blob 1958
Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters 1954
Brain Eaters 1958
Brain From Planet Arous 1957
Bride of the Monster 1955
Captive Women 1952
Cat-Women of the Moon 1953
Chain Lightning 1950
Colossus of New York 1957
Commando Cody, Sky Marshall of the Universe 1953
    see DO NOT QUALIFY Radar Men From the Moon
Conquest of Space 1955
Cosmic Man 1959
Cosmic Monsters 1958
    UK The Strange World of Planet X
Crawling Eye 1958 UK The Trollenberg Terror
Creature From the Black Lagoon 1954
Creature Walks Among Us 1956
Creature With the Atom Brain 1955
Creeping Unknown 1956
    UK Quatermass Xperiment 1955
Curse of the Faceless Man 1958
Curse of Frankenstein 1957 UK
Cyclops 1957
Daughter of Dr. Jekyll 1957
Day the Earth Stood Still 1951
Day the World Ended 1955
Deadly Mantis 1957
Destination Moon 1950
Devil Girl From Mars 1955 UK 1954
Donovan's Brain 1953
Dr. Cadman's Secret see The Black Sleep 1956
Earth vs. The Flying Saucers 1956
Earth vs. The Spider 1958
Enemy From Space 1957
Fiend Without a Face UK 1958
Fire Maidens of Outer Space 1956
First Man Into Space 1959
Five 1951
Flame Barrier 1958
Flight to Mars 1951
Fly 1958
Flying Saucer 1950
Forbidden Planet 1956
Four-Sided Triangle 1953 UK
Frankenstein 1970 1958
Frankenstein's Daughter 1958
From the Earth to the Moon 1958
From Hell it Came 1957
Gamma People 1956
Giant Behemoth 1959 UK
Giant Claw 1957
Giant From the Unknown 1958
Giant Gila Monster 1959
Giant Leeches see Attack of the Giant Leeches 1959
Gigantis the Fire Monster 1959
    JAPAN Gojira's Counter Attack 1955
Godzilla, King of the Monsters! 1956 JAPAN Gojira 1954
Gog 1954
H-Man 1959 JAPAN Beauty and the Liquid Man 1958
Have Rocket -- Will Travel 1959
Hideous Sun Demon 1959
How to Make a Monster 1958
I Married a Monster From Outer Space 1958
I Was a Teenage Frankenstein 1957
I Was a Teenage Werewolf 1957
Immediate Disaster AKA The Venusian 1954
    UK The Stranger From Venus
Incredible Petrified World 1957
Incredible Shrinking Man 1957
Indestructible Man 1956
Invaders From Mars 1953
Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1956
Invasion of the Saucer Men 1957
Invisible Boy 1957
Invisible Invaders 1959
Island of Lost Women 1959
It Came From Beneath the Sea 1955
It Came From Outer Space 1953
It Conquered the World 1956
It! The Terror From Beyond Space 1958
Journey to the Center of the Earth 1959
Killer Shrews 1959
Killers From Space 1954
Killers From Outer Space
    see Teenagers From Outer Space 1959
King Dinosaur 1955
Kronos 1957
Land Unknown 1957
Li'l Abner 1959
Lost Continent 1951
Lost Missile 1958
Lost Planet Airmen 1951
Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm 1951
Magnetic Monster 1953
Man From Planet X 1951
Man in the White Suit 1951 UK
Man Who Could Cheat Death 1959
Man Who Turned to Stone 1957
Man Without a Body 1957
Mesa of Lost Women 1953
Missile Monsters 1958
Missile to the Moon 1958
Mister Drake's Duck 1951 UK
Mole People 1956
Monkey Business 1952
Monolith Monsters 1957
Monster From Green Hell 1958
Monster From the Ocean Floor 1954
Monster on the Campus 1958
Monster of Piedras Blancas 1959
Monster That Challenged the World 1957
Mouse That Roared 1959 UK
Mysterians 1959 JAPAN Earth Defense Force 1957
Neanderthal Man 1953
Night of the Blood Beast 1958
Night the World Exploded 1957
Not of This Earth 1957
Phantom From 10,000 Leagues 1956
Phantom From Space 1953
Plan 9 From Outer Space 1959
Planet Outlaws 1953
Project Moon Base 1953
Quatermass Xperiment UK 1955
    see The Creeping Unknown 1956
Quatermass 2 UK 1957 see Enemy From Space 1957
Queen of Outer Space 1958
Radar Men From the Moon (see DO NOT QUALIFY
    Radar Men From the Moon 1952 for more info).
Red Planet Mars 1952
Return of the Fly 1959
Revenge of Frankenstein 1958 UK
Revenge of the Creature 1955
Riders to the Stars 1954
Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy 1959 MEXICO
    Aztec Mummy Against the Humanoid Robot 1958
Robot Monster 1953
Rocket Man 1954
Rocketship X-M 1950
Rodan 1957 JAPAN Radon 1956
Satan's Satellites 1958
Satellite in the Sky 1956 UK
She Demons 1958
She Devil 1957
Snow Creature 1954
Son of Dr. Jekyll 1951
Space Children 1958
Space Master X-7 1958
Spaceways 1953 UK
Spider see Earth vs. The Spider 1958
Strange World of Planet X UK
    see Cosmic Monsters 1958
Stranger From Venus 1954 UK
    see Immediate Disaster 1954
Superman and the Mole-Men 1951
Tarantula 1955
Target Earth 1954
Teenage Cave Man 1958
Teenage Monster 1958
Teenage Zombies 1959
Teenagers From Outer Space 1959
Terror From the Year 5000 1958
Terror is a Man 1959
Them! 1954
Thing From Another World 1951
This Island Earth 1955
Timeslip 1955 UK see Atomic Man 1956
Tingler 1959
Tobor the Great 1954
Trollenberg Terror UK see The Crawling Eye 1958
Twonky 1953
Unearthly 1957
Unidentified Flying Objects:
    The True Story of Flying Saucers 1956
Unknown Terror 1957
Unknown World 1951
Venusian UK see Immediate Disaster 1954
War of the Colossal Beast 1958
War of the Satellites 1958
War of the Worlds 1953
Wasp Woman 1959
The Werewolf 1956
When Worlds Collide 1951
Whip Hand 1951
Woman Eater 1958 UK
World Without End 1956
X: The Unknown 1957 UK 1956
World Without End splurged on illoes by Vargas in addition to the Brown traditional style poster art (a portion of which appears as an inset in the classic 1-sheet) and an as-yet-unidentified artist (if SFFot50s discovers it is Irving Block it will not be surprised) of that unique expressionist classic 1-sheet, above.
Finding no stand-alone American release poster for Aztec Mummy vs. the Humanoid Robot which kept the wonderful charm of the Mexican original, I've selected a double-bill poster for a "HynoScope" showing of the non-sf Vampire's Coffin (which was indeed shot with HypnoScope in mind) and included the Mexican original. Presented in US-title order.
Monster From Green Hell lobby. It seems never to have had a 1-sheet, just double bill
1-sheets with Half Human 1958 (not sf). Maybe SFFot50s will make a fake someday.
May be Mister Drake's Duck
3-sheet or some UK format. No
1-sheet to be found.
Can't find any poster for Stranger From Venus. This fake (US name Immediate Disaster,
appears here alphabetically) was made some  time ago by SFFot50s as an exercise in style assumed it might have had. However, recent discovery of lobby card (Spanish?) shown is less sedate and makes us long for a similarly-styled
1-sheet in English.
Finally found one-sheet for Flying Saucer, so stuck it to the side!
Officially titled Earth vs. The Spider and poster appears in that alpha order, posters say The Spider. Word is release at same time as hit The Fly caused this.
Destination Moon is a cheat, the US one had less thrilling art so SFFot50s took thrilling art from a European release.
The Creature From the Black Lagoon art (by the great Reynold Brown, who did several paintings used in these posters) is particularly unsatisfying in the face of character played by Julia Adams. There are versions of TCftBL poster with better art but this is the classic poster. Did someone fool with the face?
Beautiful Dreamer (perhaps better translated as The Sleeping Beauty). Couldn't find US release poster but this (by Ernesto Garcia Cabral) is too great to pass up.
The official title of The Beast With a Million Eyes spells out number, poster uses numerals.
The poster title is The Giant Leeches, but the official title is Attack of the Giant Leeches and alphabetically it belongs here.
The Atomic Kid
3-sheet, found no 1-sheet.
A&C Meet the Invisible Man poster seems to be an inexpertly captured 3-sheet--not sure. But it's all SFFot50s found.


Found no adequate one-sheet for Alligator People, this is a cobble-up from disparate elements.
The one-sheet for 4D Man seems scarcer than the horizontal format (UK version?), and cropping the painting makes it somewhat nonsensical. In putting this together, what seems to be an alternate one-sheet turned up with a completely different approach to the 4D affect. So, a representative of all three is shown.
DO NOT QUALIFY in alpha order

(Some films with 1960 release are not listed here, this tries to note the ones which are most often spoken of as "1950s SF")

1952 1. April 2000 AUSTRIA: no evidence of 1950s US release
1960 12 to the Moon
1960 The Amazing Transparent Man
1960 Atom Age Vampire ITALY Seddok, the Heir of Satana
1950 Atom Man vs. Superman: not a feature
1962 Battle Beyond the Sun USSR various refs, 1956 or 1959:
          was not jiggered and released in US by Corman until 1962
1959 Battle in Outer Space JAPAN: released in US 1960
1960 Beyond the Time Barrier
1951 Bride of the Gorilla: no sf basis
1959 Caltiki the Undying Monster MEX: released in US 1960
1953 Commando Cody, Sky Marshall of the Universe: not a feature,
          also see DO NOT QUALIFY Radar Men From the Moon 1952
1961 The Day The Earth Caught Fire UK: released in US 1962
1958 The Day the Sky Exploded ITALY Death From Outer Space:
          released in US 1961
1950 Dick Barton at Bay UK: no known US release
1950 D.O.A.: "Luminous toxin is a descriptive term for an actual poison"
1958 The Electronic Monster UK Escapement: released in US 1960
1961 The Fabulous World of Jules Verne CZECH A Deadly Invention 1958
1950 The Flying Saucer Mystery: documentary short
1957 Girl in His Pocket FRANCE: released in US 1960
1961 Gorgo UK
1958 Half Human: The Story of the Abominable Snowman,
          a Godzilla-ization of JAPAN Half-Beast-Half-Man Snowman 1955:
          no sf basis
1959 The Head GERMANY Die Nackte und der Satan (The Naked One
          and the Satan, appr.): released in US 1961
1960 House of Fright AKA Jekyll's Inferno, UK The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll
1952 The Ideal Lodger GERMANY: No known US release
1959 Invasion of the Animal People AKA Terror in the Midnight Sun
          SWEDEN Space Invasion in Lapland: released in US 1962
1952 Invasion U.S.A.: alternate history
1950 Invisible Monster: serial
1966 Journey to the Beginning of Time CZECH 1955
1951 Jungle Manhunt (a Jungle Jim film): FANTASY
1952 The Jungle: no sf basis
1961 Konga UK
1960 The Leech Woman
1956 Man Beast: no sf basis
1959 The Manster JAPAN The Split: released in US 1962
1950 Mars Attacks the World AKA Space Soldiers' Trip to Mars
          (1950 TV title): re-release of Mars Attacks the World 1938 feature
          (which in turn was edited from serial Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars 1938)
1959 On the Beach: alternate history
1953 Port Sinister: no sf basis
1950 Prehistoric Women: no sf basis
1952 Radar Men From the Moon: not a feature,
          and see ROCKET MAN SECTION BELOW

-----SPECIAL SECTION / ROCKET MAN-----

Radar Men From the Moon featured a hero wearing a rocket-pack.

Rocket Man, as we called him, was the science-cop in the jacket with (atomic!) rockets on the back and the controls (up, down, fast, slow!),on the front, he appeared in 3 Republic serials and a TV-intended project as various characters working for various outfits, portrayed by various actors. But for us kids he was just Rocket Man:

King of the Rocket Men 1949 serial, re-edited into Lost Planet Airmen 1951 theatrical feature, which see.
Radar Men From the Moon 1952 serial, re-edited into Retik, The Moon Menace 1966 feature length released to TV.
Commando Cody, Sky Marshall of the Universe 1953 "serial" (thus also DOES NOT QUALIFY) without cliffhangers but 12 episode story arc released as weekly shorts (production began before production on Zombies From the Stratosphere 1952 (feature version Satan's Satellites 1958, which see). Aired with slight trimming of each episode on TV 1955.
Zombies of the Stratosphere 1952 serial, re-edited into Satan's Satellites 1958 theatrical feature, which see.

-----END OF SPECIAL ROCKET MAN SECTION-----

1950 Rocket Ship AKA Flash Gordon, AKA Space Soldiers
          (1950 TV title): re-release of Flash Gordon 1936 feature
          (which in turn was edited from serial Flash Gordon 1936)
1954 & 56 Rocky Jones, Space Ranger TV episode compilation feature lengths:
          1954 Crash of Moons, Duel in Space, Silver Needle in the Sky;
          1956 Blast Off, Beyond the Moon, The Cold Sun, The Forbidden Moon,
          The Magnetic Moon, Manhunt in Space, Menace from Outer Space,
          Renegade Satellite, The Robot of Regalio: no known theatrical release
1960 Ship of Monsters MEXICO La Nave de los Monstruos
1959 The Shaggy Dog: no sf basis
1950 Space Soldiers, see DO NOT QUALIFY Rocket Ship 1950
1950 Space Soldiers' Trip to Mars,
          see DO NOT QUALIFY Mars Attacks the World 1950
1950 Space Soldiers Conquer the Universe (TV title)
          AKA Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940 feature),
          edited from serial Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe 1940
          (also, no known theatrical release)
1954 Superman TV episode compilation feature lengths:
          Superman Flies Again, Superman and the Jungle Devil, Superman in
          Scotland Yard, Superman's Peril: no known theatrical release
1957 The Transparent Man vs. the Fly Man JAPAN The Murdering Mite USA:
          no evidence of 1950s USA release
1958 Unnatural WEST GERMANY Alraune 1952:
          sf element (artificial insemination) edited out of US version
1952 Untamed Women: no sf basis
1951 Two Lost Worlds: no sf basis
1956 Warning From Space JAPAN Spacemen Appear in Tokyo:
          no evidence of US release
1959 The World, the Flesh and the Devil: alternate history
1952 Zombies of the Stratosphere: not a feature,
          also see DO NOT QUALIFY Radar Men From the Moon 1952
CHRONOLOGICAL:

1950 Chain Lightning
94 M / War / War 
Director: Stuart Helsler
Humphrey Bogart, Eleanor Parker, Raymond Massey, Richard Whorf, Morris Ankrum

Experimental jet JA-3 (Mach 2+, like the X series rocket planes, the D-558 jet/rockets and yet-to-come fighter jets of real life), which is innocent of limits of jet engines and instead is essentially rocket-like in design and flight ceiling, is flown by 50-year-old Bogie. Ejector seat/pod is still in development in the JA-4--thus much danger.

1950 Destination Moon
92 M / CLR / Pal / Eagle-Lion
Director: Irving Pichel  Producer: George Pal   Story basis: Robert Heinlein  Astronomical art: Chesley Bonestell
John Archer, Warner Anderson, Tom Powers, Dick Wesson, Erin O'Brien-Moore

US scientists team with US industry to build rocket shaped spaceship to go to moon. They do and return despite difficulty. No nonsense, no women.

1950 The Flying Saucer
69 M / Colonial / Film Classics
Director: Mikel Conrad
Mikel Conrad, Pat Garrison, Hantz von Teuffen, Earle Lyon, Lester Sharpe, Russell Hicks, Frank Darien, Denver Pyle

Playboy is undercover agent sent to Alaska to investigate flying saucer sightings, meets Soviet agents with same intent. Made by Earth scientist but it flies, occupies maybe 60 seconds of screen time.

1950 Rocketship X-M
77 M / Lippet / Lippert
Director: Kurt Neumann
Lloyd Bridges, Osa Massen, John Emery, Noah Beery Jr., Hugh O'Brian, Morris Ankrum

First Earth spaceflight, in rocket shaped spaceship which is only occasionally a V2, heads for Moon and misses, winds up on Mars. Humanoid Martians, who are the survivors of Mars-wide nuclear war but are in mutated savage condition, kill a few of the crew. The balance escape Mars but cannot land safely on Earth. Yet, science will carry on! Martian scenes reputedly tinted red.

1951 Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man
82 M / UI / Uni
Director: Charles Lamont
Bud Abbott & Lou Costello, Nancy Guild, Arthur Franz, Adele Jergens, Sheldon Leonard, William Frawley

A&C team up with boxer to use Universal's version of Wells' invisibility formula.

1951 The Day the Earth Stood Still
92 M / Fox / Fox
Director: Robert Wise  Story basis: Harry Bates Farewell to the Master
Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe, Billy Gray, Frances Bavier, Lock Martin

Saucer shaped spaceship lands in Washington DC, misunderstood humanoid alien and robot helper mean to bring advice for peace and communication with interstellar civilizations. Military attacks. Plot proved popular.

1951 Five
93 M / Oboler / Col
Director: Arch Oboler  House: Frank Lloyd Wright architect
William Phipps, Susan Douglas, James Anderson, Charles Lampkin, Earl Lee

Early or earliest post-nuclear holocaust film about presumed only five survivors of same.

1951 Flight to Mars
72 M / CLR (CineColor--some say SuperCineColor) / Monogram / Monogram
Director: Lesley Selander  Story basis: Leo Tolstoi Aelita
Marguerite Chapman, Cameron Mitchell, Arthur Franz, Virginia Huston, John Litel, Morris Ankrum.

Five people fly from Earth to Mars in rocket shaped spaceship, crash land, and find advanced underground humanoid civilization with hidden agendas. Despite poster claim ("Fifty years into the future") evidence is it is set in then-contemporary times.

1951 Lost Continent
83 M / Neufield / Lippert
Director: Sam Newfield
Cesar Romero, Hillary Brooke, Chick Chandler, John Hoyt, Acquanetta, Sid Melton, Whit Bissell, Hugh Beaumont

Expedition to escarpment on South Pacific island to recover atomic rocket (V2 at launch, Rocketship X-M in ascent, V2 in flight, X-M at crash) encounters prehistoric creatures. Original prints of this b&w film had jungle scenes tinted green.

1951 Lost Planet Airmen, edited from serial King of the Rocket Men 1949
65 M / Republic / Republic
Director: Fred C. Brannon
Tristram Coffin, Mae Clark, Don Haggerty, House Peters Jr., Dale Van Sickel, Tom Steele, David Sharpe

Rocket Man fights potential dictator of Earth, who intends to obliterate cities with sonic ray weapon. Republic's water heater robots present. Arguably, sequel: Satan's Satellites 1958 (see DO NOT QUALIFY Radar Men From the Moon 1952 for more info). nps

1951 Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm
80 M / UI / Uni
Director: Edward Sedgwick
Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride, Richard Long, Meg Randall, Ray Collins, Barbara Brown, Emory Parnell, Peter Leeds, Teddy Hart, Oliver Blake

In Kettles' 4th appearance (3rd stand-alone film), they return to their shack and Pa discovers uranium. It renders Pa radioactive.

1951 The Man From Planet X
70 M / Mid Century Film / UA
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer
Robert Clarke, Margaret Field, Raymond Bond, William Schallert

Rogue planet enters our system, small vaguely humanoid spacesuit-wearing alien from planet comes to Earth. Landing on moor-y island off Scotland near planet's discoverer's lab in cone-attached-to-ball spaceship to scope things out, ability to control humans overshadows his seeming attempts to communicate.

1951 The Man in the White Suit UK
85 M / Ealing (Rank) / Uni
Director: Alexander Mackendrick
Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood, Cecil Parker, Alan Birnley, Michael Gough

Scientist invents fabric that will not wear or stain, makes suit of same. Entire economic society realizes this will wreck modern civilization, and chase him.

1951 Mister Drake's Duck UK
75 M / Angel / UA
Director: Val Guest
Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Yolande Donlan, Jon Pertwee, Wilfrid Hyde-White

Duck lays eggs of uranium with lead shells.

1951 Son of Dr. Jekyll
78 M / Col / Col
Director: Seymour Friedman
Louis Hayward, Jody Lawrance, Alexander Knox, Lester Matthews, Gavin Muir, Paul Cavanagh

Son of Dr. Jekyll, still in Victorian times, must sort out if he is also a Hyde. In Columbia's version of Mr. Hyde this is sf.

1951 Superman and the Mole-Men
58 M / Lippert / Lippert
Director: Lee Sholem
George Reeves, Phyllis Coates, Jeff Corey, John T. Bambury, Tony Boris, Billy Curtis, Jerry Maren

Superman, already a known figure, helps resolve trouble between short humanoids from an underground civilization, disturbed by an oil well, and surface dwellers.

1951 The Thing From Another World AKA The Thing
87 M / Winchester (Hawks) / RKO
Director: Christian Nyby  Story basis: John Campbell Who Goes There?
Margaret Sheridan, Kenneth Tobey, Robert Cornthwaite, Douglas Spencer, James Young, Dewey Martin, Robert Nichols, William Self, Eduard Franz, Sally Creighton, James Arness

USAF captain and crew fly to Arctic scientific outpost to investigate aircraft crash, turns out to be flying saucer with single humanoid-shaped alien survivor. Alien is plant, not animal, and murderously violent.

1951 Unknown World
74 M / Lippert / Lippert
Director: Terry O. Morse
Victor Kilian, Bruce Kellogg, Otto Waldis, Jim Bannon, Marilyn Nash

Scientist uses private funds to invent and built cyclotram, a vehicle which can bore into Earth. looking for safe place for humans to live after total nuclear holocaust he considers inevitable.

1951 When Worlds Collide
83 M / CLR / Par / Par
Director: Rudolph Mate  Producer: George Pal  Story basis Wylie/Balmer When Worlds Collide  Technical advisor Chesley Bonestell
Richard Derr, Barbara Rush, Peter Hansen, John Hoyt

Rogue sun with attendant planet will approach Earth, planet's pull will wipe out Earth's civilization and the sun will destroy it physically. Trick will be to build the first spaceship ever, rocket shaped and ramp launched, to travel to rogue sun's planet and seed it with everything needed including basic human population. Scientists and industrialists try it, will it work and who may go?

1951 The Whip Hand
82 M / 1.85:1 (unconfirmed) / RKO / RKO
Director: William Cameron Menzies
Carla Balenda, Elliott Reid, Edgar Barrier, Raymond Burr

Photojournalist stumbles on Communists in Midwest town conspiring to clandestinely attack US via germ warfare. Made via substantial rewriting and reshooting of completed but unreleased The Man He Found, in which photojournalist stumbles on fled Nazis in same to do same. Hitler is on editing room floor.

1952 The Beautiful Dreamer MEXICO El Bello Durmiente
75 M / Cinematografica Valdes & Mier y Brooks / ???
Director: Gilberto Martinez Solares
Tin Tan (Germán Valdés), Lilia del Valle, Wolf Rubinskis, Marcelo Chávez

Caveman+dinosaur type caveman given sleeping potion wakened by archeologists thousands of years later in modern world. 50s US release not confirmed. Original title would be more aptly translated as The Sleeping Beauty, says SFFot50s. Ernesto Garcia Cabral poster art.

1952 Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla
74 M / Jack Broder / RealArt
Director: William Beaudine
Bela Lugosi, Duke Mitchell & Sammy Petrillo, Charlita, Muriel Landers, Al Kikume

Mad scientist on remote Pacific island conducts evolution experiments on two American comedians.

1952 Captive Women AKA 1000 Years from Now on rerelease 1956
64 M / American (Zugsmith) / RKO
Director: Stuart Gilmore
Robert Clarke, Margaret Field, Gloria Saunders, Ron Randell, Stuart Randall, Paula Dorety, Robert Bice, Chili Williams, William Schallert

Warring groups, some mutated by radiation, fight in post-nuclear-war future NYC circa 3000 CE.

1952 Monkey Business
97 M / Fox / Fox
Director: Howard Hawks
Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, Charles Coburn, Marilyn Monroe, Hugh Marlowe, Henri Letondal, Robert Cornthwaite

Lab animal mixes version of scientist's youth formula, scientist and spouse inadvertently take it. It works.

1952 Red Planet Mars
82 M / Melaby (1-shot) / UA
Director: Harry Horner
Peter Graves, Andrea King, Herbert Berghof, Walter Sande, Marvin Miller, Willis Bouchey, Morris Ankrum

Scientist with special transmitter reports communications from Mars which threaten all Earth's survival. Also received in USSR, religious references in messages and economic factors on Earth heat up Cold War.

1953 Abbott and Costello Go to Mars
77 M / UI / Uni
Director: Charles Lamont
Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Mari Blanchard, Martha Hyer, Anita Ekberg

A&C accidentally take off in rocket shaped spaceship to Mars but land in New Orleans, later go to Venus and find humanoid man-less woman civilization there--prescient of Cat-Women of the Moon by 5 months.

1953 Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
76 M / UI / Uni
Director: Charles Lamont
Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Boris Karloff, Craig Stevens, Helen Westcott, Reginald Denny

A&C are Edwardian-era cops in London who try to stop Universal's version of Mr. Hyde.

1953 Beast From 20,000 Fathoms
80 M / Jack Dietz / War
Director: Eugene Lourie Stopmotion effects: Ray Harryhausen  Story basis: Ray Bradbury The Foghorn
Paul Hubschmid, Cecil Kellaway, Kenneth Tobey, Donald Woods, Lee Van Cleef, Steve Brodie, Ross Elliott, Jack Pennick, Ray Hike, Mary Hill, Michael Fox, Alvin Greenman, Frank Ferguson, King Donovan.

Arctic atomic test releases dinosaur, which follows instinctive migratory route to NYC and is attracted by foghorn.

1953 Cat-Women of the Moon
64 M / 1.85:1 / Z-M (1-shot) / Astor
Director: Arthur Hilton  Moonscapes: Chesley Bonestell
Sonny Tufts, Victor Jory, Marie Windsor

Rocket shaped spaceship makes Earth's first flight from Earth to Moon, four person crew meets giant spiders on the surface and an underground civilization of beautiful humanoid women who want their ship. Shot for and released in 3D. Plot proved popular.

1953 Donovan's Brain
83 M / Dowling / UA
Director: Felix E. Feist  Story basis: Curt Siodmak Donovan's Brain
Lew Ayres, Gene Evans, Nancy Davis, Steve Brodie, Michael Colgan

Scientist keeps rich man's brain alive in aquarium after the body dies in accident, encourages it to communicate telepathically but it possesses him--and others.

1953 Four Sided Triangle UK
81 M / Hammer / Astor
Director: Terence Fisher
Barbara Payton, James Hayter, Stephen Murray, John Van Eyssen

Life-long romantic triangle of two men and one woman becomes four-sided when the two men invent matter duplicator (great retro hardware) and it is used on the woman. Duplication is perfect in all details, thus--trouble.

1953 Invaders From Mars
78 M / CLR (SuperCineColor) / National Pictures / Fox
Director: William Cameron Menzies
Helena Carter, Arthur Franz, Jimmy Hunt, Leif Erickson, Hillary Brooke, Morris Ankrum

Saucer shaped Martian spaceship lands within sandpit behind home of young boy and his parents, tentacled head in globe shaped container directs humanoid servants, will-less "myoo-tants," to capture humans and implant mind-controlling devices in the back of their necks. Soon boy cannot trust any adult, except woman doctor and man astronomer. Or so story goes.

1953 It Came From Outer Space
81 M / UI / Uni
Director: Jack Arnold  Story basis: Ray Bradbury The Meteor, treatment
Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, Charles Drake, Joe Sawyer, Russell Johnson

Monstrous aliens in ball shaped spaceship crash land on Earth in desert near small town, they effect repairs by taking over bodies of humans from area. Man astronomer and woman friend have seen crash, worry about strange behavior of townspeople, find crash site and communicate with the aliens. Much alien POV stuff. Shot for and released in 3D, only use of a 3D Universal logo.

1953 The Magnetic Monster
76 M / Tors / UA
Director: Curt Siodmak  Producer: Ivan Tors
Richard Carlson, King Donovan, Jean Bryon, Harry Ellerbe

Monster is scientist-created new element which not only is highly destructive because of magnetic and radioactive properties, but also eats up energy and becomes more massive as a consequence--increasing threat. Tor's O.S.I. (see Gog, Riders to the Stars) is on the job.

1953 Mesa of Lost Women
70 M / Ron Ormond / Howco
Director: Ron Ormond, Herbert Tevos

Mad scientist on Mexican mesa manipulates glands to alter living things, principally big beautiful women, gnarly little men and spiders.

1953 The Neanderthal Man
78 M / Global / UA
Director: EA Dupont
Robert Shane, Joy Terry, Richard Crane, Doris Merrick, Beverly Garland

Theory-proving scientist uses serum to regress evolution in animal subjects, then in his housekeeper, then himself. Result: Neanderthal Man.

1953 Phantom From Space
73 M / Planet Filmplays / UA
Director: W. Lee Wilder
Ted Cooper, Tom Daly, Steve Acton, Burt Wenland, Lela Nelson

Humanoid alien crash lands his never-clearly-seen spaceship on Earth (we see fireball), runs around, gets in trouble, gets chased and by removing his life-support spacesuit becomes invisible, eludes capture. But Earth people get his helmet, which he must retrieve to survive. Griffith Observatory doubles as Griffith Institute.

1953 Planet Outlaws, edited from serial Buck Rogers 1939
70 M / assume 1.37:1 / Uni (serial)-Krellberg? (feature) / Goodwill
Directors: Ford Beebe, Saul A. Goodkind
Buster Crabbe, Constance Moore, Jackie Moran, Jack Mulhall, Anthony Warde, Philson Ahn, C. Montague Shaw, Guy Usher, William Gould, Henry Brandon, Roy Barcroft, David Sharpe

Buck and Buddy reawaken after their 500 year "sleep" and help last free future-Earth city ally with unconquered humanoid Saturnians to overthrow Earth's gangster dictator. Much flying back and forth in flatiron shaped spaceships. Short intro/outro with 1953 UFO/Reds paranoia added.

1953 Project Moon Base
63 M / Galaxy (1-shot) / Lippert
Director: Richard Talmadge  Story basis: Robert Heinlein TV script
Donna Martell, Hayden Rorke, Ross Ford

In future 1970, US scouts Moon for base-building project, taking rocket shaped spaceship from Earth to orbiting aspirin shaped space station where they switch to presciently utilitarian looking ship to moon. 3 person crew; one man, one woman, one spy. Spy's actions force them to maroon themselves on moon. Changed considerably from proposed TV show Heinlein contributed to but telling Heinlein furbelows remain. Moon Base is two words in titles.

1953 Robot Monster
66 M / Three-Dimension / Astor
Director: Phil Tucker
George Nader, Claudia Barrett, Royale, John Mylong

One hairy-bodied (monstrously gorilla-like) helmeted alien, Ro-Man (not literally a robot), comes to Earth (means of travel unclear) and calcinates (thus, killing) all Earth's humans except for handful whom he must destroy manually in order to complete plan of taking over planet. Dinosaurs are unleashed. He fails, or so story goes. Shot for and released in 3D.

1953 Spaceways UK
74 M / Hammer / Lippert
Director: Terence Fisher
Howard Duff, Eva Bartok, Alan Wheatley, Philip Leaver

UK space program graduates from V2s to place satellites in orbit with von Braun 3-stage Ferry Rockets when manned space flight in such a rocket shaped spaceship debuts (yet still V2 at launch and Rocketship X-M a moment later!) so US scientist can clear name of crime-of-passion murders. Aerobee Mice in cameo.

1953 The Twonky
84 M / Oboler / UA
Director: Arch Oboler  Story basis: Kuttner/Moore The Twonky
Hans Conried, Janet Warren, Billy Lynn, Ed Max, Gloria Blondell

Ambulatory robot TV from future is inexplicably delivered to man who didn't want any TV in first place. It is meant to serve his best interests, which means preventing some behavior the man desires but which could be considered harmful.

1953 The War of the Worlds
85 M / CLR / Par / Par
Director: Byron Haskin  Producer: George Pal  Astronomical art: Chesley Bonestell  Story basis: HG Wells The War of the Worlds
Gene Barry, Ann Robinson, Les Tremayne, Bob Cornthwaite, Lewis Martin, Paul Frees

Full Pal treatment of updated-to-contemporary-times-and-technology Wells classic, with reference to Orson Welles radio version. Ball shaped spaceships deliver triangular saucer shaped ships with monstrous Martians to destroy human civilization.

1954 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea AKA Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
127 M / CLR / Disney / Buena Vista
Director: Richard Fleischer  Story basis: Jules Verne 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
James Mason, Kirk Douglas, Peter Lorre, Paul Lucas

Full Disney treatment of Verne classic. Renegade Captain Nemo and crew build, maintain and operate iron-filigree sub with secret power source in complete isolation from rest of society, upon whom they wage selective warfare.

1954 The Atomic Kid
86 M / 1.85:1 / Rooney / Republic
Director: Leslie H. Martinson
Mickey Rooney, Robert Strauss, Elaine Davis, Bill Goodwin, Whit Bissell, Joey Forman, Peter Leeds, Hal March

Mickey Rooney is radioactive radium prospector who glows in the dark. But, you knew that.

1954 Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters
65 M / Allied Artists / Allied Artists
Director: Edward Bernds
Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bernard Gorcey, Lloyd Corrigan, Ellen Corby, John Dehner, Laura Mason, Paul Wexler, David Gorcey, Benny Bartlett, Norman Bishop, Paul Bryar, Steve Calvert

Owners of creepy old house use mad scientist techniques on Bowery Boys (their 34th film): Brain swaps, robot, gorilla, female vampire and old lady with a flesh-eating plant.

NOTE: Other Bowery Boys films with fantastical elements do not qualify for sf under SFFot50s guidelines.

1954 Creature From the Black Lagoon
79 M / 2.00:1 / UI / Uni
Director: Jack Arnold
Richard Carlson, Julie Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno, Nestor Paiva, Whit Bissell

Brazilian and US crew and scientists go up Amazon on small boat to investigate strange humanoid amphibian fossil, which turns out to exist as living fossil. Male, and savage, it shows extraordinary interest in human female expedition member. Shot for and released in 3D. Sequel: Revenge of the Creature 1955.

1954 Gog
85 M / 1.66:1 / CLR / Tors / UA
Director: Herbert L. Strock  Producer: Ivan Tors
Richard Egan, Constance Dowling, Herbert Marshall, John Wengraf, William Schallert

Multilevel underground lab conducting hibernation research for spaceflight, presumably in planned rocket shaped spaceships to planned wheel shaped space station 1000 miles up, experiences unexplained violent deaths. Suspicion falls on lab's two robot peripherals (Gog and Magog, utilitarian designs like Daleks with no creamy centers) to Novac, mainframe computer which controls them but which is not turned on. Above is unseen vehicle from outer space (later a rocket shaped spaceship is glimpsed). Tor's O.S.I (see The Magnetic Monster, Riders to the Stars) investigates. Aerobee Mice, V2 in cameos. Shot for and released in 3D.

1954 Immediate Disaster AKA The Venusian UK The Stranger From Venus
75 M / Rich & Rich / ???
Director: Burt Balaban
Patricia Neal, Helmut Dantine, Derek Bond, Cyril Luckham, Willoughby Gray, Marigold Russell, Arthur Young, Stanley Van Beers, Kenneth Edwards, David Garth

Humanoid alien in saucer shaped spaceship from Venus brings warning of dangers of nuclear weapons to Earth. Plot vaguely reminiscent of The Day the Earth Stood Still 1951, Neal exactly reminiscent of same.

1954 Killers From Space
71 M / 1.85:1 / Planet Filmways / RKO
Director: W. Lee Wilder
Peter Graves, James Seay, Steve Pendleton, Frank Gerstle

Nuclear scientist flying over Soledad Flats atomic test crashes, later walks in to base evidently unhurt but with suspicious characteristics. Later he recalls ping pong ball eyed humanoid aliens, who travel in saucer shaped spaceships, secreted in caverns near test site who intend to use Earth for a farm, using atomic radiation-mutated giant insects and lizards to prepare it.

1954 Monster From the Ocean Floor
64 M / Palo Alto / Lippert
Director: Wyott Ordung
Anne Kimbell, Stuart Wade, Dick Pinner, Jack Hayes, Wyott Ordung

Giant cyclopian octopus creature, likely created by atomic testing in Pacific beach area in Mexico short years before, menaces and sometimes kills things which go under water or on beach during full moons. Unique for female, commercial artist, Nancy Drew-like protagonist. Male marine biologist uses a one-man Aerojet pedal-powered Minisub.

1954 Riders to the Stars
81 M / SuperCineColor/ Tors / UA
Director: Richard Carlson  Producer: Ivan Tors
William Lundigan, Herbert Marshall, Richard Carlson, Martha Hyer, Dawn Addams, King Donovan

Meteors hold key to making spaceships tough enough, crew members to fly 3 single seat rocket shaped spaceships (V2s, really) from Earth into space to collect meteors are contacted and evaluated without revealing any info about mission, mounted by Tors' O.S.I. (see Gog, The Magnetic Monster). Aerobee Mice in featured role; Sikorsky H5 cameo.

1954 The Rocket Man
79 M / 1.66:1 / Panoramic / Fox
Director: Oscar Rudolph
Charles Coburn, Spring Byington, Anne Francis, John Agar, George Winslow

Little boy has ray gun which compels people to tell the truth and stops Kaiser Darrins dead in their tracks.

1954 The Snow Creature
69 M / Planet Filmplays / UA
Director: W. Lee Wilder
Paul Langton, Leslie Denison, Teru Shimada, Rollin Moriyama and possibly Lock Martin

US botanist and photog trek Himalayas for specimens, Sherpa guides force chase of Yeti. When Yeti is knocked unconscious, Americans regain control and haul Yeti back to US. Yeti escapes in LA, takes to storm drains (same year as Them!). Sheer thorough logic of all aspects of this film advance it from fantasy into sf.

1954 Target Earth
74 M / 1.66:1 / Abtcom (Herman Cohen) / Allied Artists
Director: Sherman A. Rose
Richard Denning, Kathleen Crowley, Richard Reeves, Virginia Grey, Robert Roark, Whit Bissell, Mort Marshall, Arthur Space, Steve Pendleton, House Peters, Jr.

Isolated survivors in Chicago, otherwise evacuated due to invasion by Venusian robots, must save themselves while military saves planet.

1954 Them!
94 M / 1.75:1 / War / War
Director: Gordon Douglas
James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, James Arness, Joan Weldon, Onslow Stevens, Sean McClory, Ann Doran, Dub Taylor, Fess Parker, Leonard Nimoy

Nuclear tests cause ants to grow giant size and menace southwest American desert (observed from the photogenic Sikorsky H-5), they move to LA sewers and are fought by US Army. Title logo only in color--blue and red--possibly holdover from original intent to shoot in 3D.

1954 Tobor the Great
77 M / Dudley / Republic
Director: Lee Sholem
Charles Drake, Karin Booth, Billy Chapin, Taylor Holmes

Robot, invented at private lab to pilot V2 spaceships in lieu of human pilots, is sentient and communicates by combo of radio and telepathy. Spies intend to steal its secret by kidnapping (at Griffith Park Observatory) inventor and his grandson, who has established a telepathic sympathy with it. Find no connection with TV's Captain Video's I, Tobor (before 1955) but later used for Here Comes Tobor TV pilot 1957.

1955 The Beast with a Million Eyes
75 M / San Mateo (1-shot) / American Releasing
Director: David Kramarsky (with Roger Corman)
Paul Birch, Lorna Thayer, Dona Cole, Dick Sargent, Leonard Tarver, Bruce Whitmore, Chester Conklin

Stubby rocket shaped alien spaceship lands near isolated desert farmstead, alien emerges and takes over brains of animals and stupid handyman. Alien forms shown are monstrous, but may be illusions or other aliens with enslaved brains.

1955 Bride of the Monster
69 M / 1.85:1 / Rolling M (1-shot) / Banner
Director: Edward D. Wood Jr.
Bela Lugosi, Tony McCoy, Harvey B. Dunne, Don Nagel, Tor Johnson, Loretta King, George Becwar, Bud Osborne

Mad scientist in remote location, with octopus, uses atomic energy to turn captive subjects into atomic supermen. Woman, captured and put in wedding dress, will be bride but things go awry. Sequel (sort of): Night of the Ghouls, which was not sf and although made in 1959 was presumably not released until the 80s.

1955 Conquest of Space
80 M / 1.85:1 / CLR / Par / Par
Director: Byron Haskin  Producer: George Pal
Story basis: Werner Von Braun Mars Project, Bonestell and Ley Conquest of Space
Walter Brooke, Eric Fleming, Mickey Shaughnessy, Phil Foster, William Redfield, William Hopper, Ross Martin, Michael Fox, Joan Shawlee, Benson Fong

Rocket shaped spaceship (with flying-wing wings), originally to be tested via trip to Moon but instead goes direct to Mars, is built at wheel shaped Earth-orbit space station 1000 miles up serviced by rocket shaped spaceships (with supersonic bomber type wings), takes place "tomorrow or the day after tomorrow." Trials and tribulation throughout construction and mission. Can they return?

1955 Creature With the Atom Brain
69 M / Clover / Col
Director: Edward L. Cahn
Richard Denning, Angela Stevens, S. John Launer, Michael Granger, Gregory Guy, Linda Bennett, Tristram Coffin

Scientist uses combo of atomic radiation and implants to make super-strong remote control zombies, financed by revengeful gangster. Their voices act as remote speakers, their eyes as TV cameras.

1955 Day the World Ended
79 M / 2.00:1 (Superscope) / Golden State / American Releasing
Director: Roger Corman
Richard Denning, Lori Nelson, Adele Jergens, Mike Connors, Paul Birch, Raymond Hatton, Jonathan Haze

Random survivors of general nuclear holocaust arrange shelter, fight each other and various mutants including vaguely humanoid three-eyed monster.

1955 Devil Girl From Mars UK 1954
77 M / 1.66:1 / Gigi (1-shot, Danzinger) / British Lion
Director: David MacDonald
Hugh McDermott, Hazel Court, Patricia Laffan, Peter Reynolds, Adrienne Corri, Joseph Tomelty, John Laurie, Sophie Stewart, Anthony Richmond, James Edmund

Martian humanoid woman and robot servant arrive on Earth in saucer shaped spaceship (actually much like a brummkreisel) looking for healthy men, menace people at remote Scottish inn.

1955 It Came From Beneath the Sea
79 M / 1.85:1 / Clover / Col
Director: Robert Gordon  Stopmotion: Ray Harryhausen
Kenneth Tobey, Faith Domergue, Donald Curtis, Ian Keith, Dean Maddox Jr., Chuck Griffiths, Harry Lauter, Richard W. Peterson, Del Courtney, Tol Avery

Nuclear testing creates giant octopus, with six tentacles. It escapes nuclear sub, which chases it to San Francisco.

1955 King Dinosaur
63 M / Zimgor (1-shot) / Lippert
Director: Bert I. Gordon
William Bryant, Wanda Curtis, Douglas Henderson, Patti Gallagher, Marvin Miller

Four scientists (half women, half men--aggregately, not individually) take a V2 from Earth to planet Nova, home to stock footage monsters and matted-in lizards. Aerobee Mice in cameo.

1955 Revenge of the Creature
82 M / 2.00:1 / UI / Uni
Director: Jack Arnold
John Agar, Lori Nelson, John Bromfield, Nestor Paiva

Scientists and entertainers capture the Creature From the Black Lagoon in its Amazon home and take it to Florida aquarium for study and exhibition. The Creature wants to study a woman in a bathing suit. Shot for and released in 3D. Sequel to Creature From the Black Lagoon 1954. Sequel: The Creature Walks Among Us 1956.

1955 Tarantula
80 M / 1.85:1 / UI / Uni
Director: Jack Arnold
John Agar, Mara Corday, Leo G. Carroll, Nestor Paiva

Scientist wants to feed world with effective nutrients, but they cause animals to grow to giant size, One, a spider, escapes and continues to grow. Male town doctor and scientist's female assistant fight it.

1955 This Island Earth
87 M / 2.00:1 / CLR / UI / Uni
Director: Joseph M. Newman  Story basis: Raymond F. Jones The Alien Machine
Jeff Morrow, Faith Domergue, Rex Reason, Lance Fuller, Russell Johnson

Humanoid aliens recruit brilliant Earth scientist but there is always nagging doubt the aliens are not telling all. A trip to their home planet in saucer shaped spaceship makes it all clear (and there are monstrous humanoid mutants there). Interociter not included.

1956 1984
91 M / Holiday (1-shot) / Col
Director: Michael Anderson  Story basis George Orwell 1984
Michael Redgrave, Edmond O'Brien, Jan Sterling, David Kossoff, Mervyn Johns, Donald Pleasence, Carol Wolveridge, Ernest Clark, Patrick Allen

Film adaptation from George Orwell's dystopian Cold War-ish novel about a future under a totalitarian global government. nsp

1956 The Atomic Man UK Timeslip 1955
76 M / 1.66:1? / Merton Park ? Todon? / Allied Artists
Director: Ken Hughes
Gene Nelson, Faith Domergue, Joseph Tomelty, Leonard Williams.

Affected by atomic radiation, unknown man is found floating in Thames with bullet wound. Surgery removes bullet but man has been "dead" 7 seconds. His brain now 7 seconds in future--which has nothing to do with the plot, he turns out to be scientist called "The Isotope Man." A surgically-altered double is at large. Outside of glowing shown on news photo and an x-ray and some artificial tungsten double-talk, balance of sf portrayed verbally.

1956 The Black Sleep AKA Dr. Cadman's Secret
82 M / 1.85:1 / Bel-Air / UA
Director: Reginald Le Borg
Basil Rathbone, Akim Tamiroff, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, Bela Lugosi, Tor Johnson

Surgeon uses special drug to allow condemned man to mimic death and escape execution, but real plan is to use it to provide deeply anesthetized live subjects for brain research to enable treatment for doctor's wife.

1956 The Creature Walks Among Us
78 M / 1.85:1 / UI / Uni
Director: John Sherwood
Jeff Morrow, Rex Reason, Leigh Snowden, Gregg Palmer

Creature From the Black Lagoon is captured in Florida, burned badly in accident, surgically has vestigial lungs enlarged and having lost his scales grows skin. Taken to California for study, he observes rather than fights his captors and upon escape takes off swimming. Sequel to Revenge of the Creature 1955.

1956 The Creeping Unknown UK The Quatermass Xperiment
78 M / 1.66:1 / Exclusive / UA
Director: Val Guest
Brian Donlevy, Jack Warner, Frank Phillips, Margia Dean, Thora Hird, Lionel Jeffries, Gordon Jackson, Harold Lang

Exploring rocket shaped spaceship returns to Earth with one surviving but infected astronaut who turns into a humanoid monster. Ending changed somewhat from UK TV show basis, The Quatermass Experiment (note spelling) 1953. Sequel: Enemy From Space 1957 UK Quatermass 2 1956.

1956 Earth vs. The Flying Saucers
83 M / 1.85:1 / Clover / Col
Director: Fred F. Sears  Stopmotion: Ray Harryhausen
Hugh Marlowe, Joan Taylor, Donald Curtis, Morris Ankrum, John Zaremba, Grandon Rhodes, Harry Lauter, Thomas Browne Henry, Charles Evans, Frank Wilcox

Saucer shaped spaceships flown by smallish humanoids--probably the first appearance in culture of the now-canonical UFO-cult "greys" but nearly always seen in full spacesuit with seemingly-opaque helmets--from another system seem to invade Earth with impunity, they intended peaceful communication but mean to have their way using ruthless power.

1956 Fire Maidens of Outer Space UK
73 M / Criterion / Saturn (1-shot)
Director: Cy Roth
Anthony Dexter, Susan Shaw, Paul Carpenter, Jacqueline Curtis

Earth expedition (in a V2) goes to 13th moon of Jupiter (unknown in 1956). There, largely female colony originally from Earth's Atlantis needs men. And someone to fight a humanoid Jupiterian moon monster. And they dance to "Polovetzian Dance."

1956 Forbidden Planet
98 M / 2.55:1 / CLR (EastmanColor) / MGM / MGM
Director: Fred M. Wilcox
Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen, Warren Stevens, Jack Kelly, Richard Anderson, Earl Holliman, James Drury, George Wallace, Robert Dix

Full MGM treatment of science fiction premise, future-Earth saucer shaped spaceship on mission to remote planet to relieve/rescue isolated Earth colonists. The two sole survivors have flourished by using indigenous technology of extinct mysterious super race, built perfect robot (Robbie, see The Invisible Boy 1957).

1956 The Gamma People UK
79 M / Warwick / Col
Director: John Gilling
Paul Douglas, Eva Bartok, Leslie Phillips, Walter Rilla

Two Free World reporters are stranded in Iron Curtain country, in which scientists are controlling the populace with gamma rays.

1956 Godzilla, King of the Monsters! JAPAN Gojira 1954
80 M / Toho (US version Jewell) / Transworld (Avco Embassy?)
Directors: Ishirô Honda, Terry O. Morse
Raymond Burr, Takashi Shimura, Akira Takarada, Momoko Kôchi, Akihiko Hirata

U.S. release of first Godzilla film, with American newsman cut in, English dubbing and other changes. Revived and perhaps altered by radiation from atomic testing, giant lizard heads from under Pacific to Japan, stomps Tokyo. Sequel: Gigantis the Fire Monster 1959.

1956 Indestructible Man
70 M / C.G.K. (1-shot) / Allied Artists
Director: Jack Pollexfen
Lon Chaney Jr., Max Showalter, Marian Carr, Ross Elliott

Murderer is executed by electric chair, is revived but not reformed by scientist's electric apparatus. He is also stronger and tougher, though mute.  (SFFot50s' childhood brain confused this film with Chaney's 1941 Man-Made Monster, which was re-released in 1950 (on a bill with The Flying Saucer 1950) as The Atomic Monster and thus almost qualifies for this list.)

1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers
80 M / 2.00:1 (Superscope) / Allied Artists / Allied Artists
Director: Don Siegel  Story basis: Jack Finney The Body Snatchers
Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Carolyn Jones, Larry Gates, King Donovan, Jean Willes, Ralph Dumke, Virginia Christine, Tom Fadden, Kenneth Patterson

Young woman in small town becomes convinced her family are somehow changed. Confides in local man, a doctor who has seen other similar cases. They and a friend couple slowly discover pods from outer space (they claim to have drifted here as seeds) are making alien duplicates of human population. It seems nation- or world-wide, and they may be next!

1956 It Conquered the World
71 M / 1.85:1 / Sunset / AIP
Director: Roger Corman
Peter Graves, Beverly Garland, Lee Van Cleef, Sally Fraser, Russ Bender, Jonathan Haze, Dick Miller, Charles B. Griffith

Venusian who looks like large seething carrot comes to Earth via hijacked Earth satellite (glimpsed saucer shape) and hides in cave, means to conquer planet by taking control of humans using back of neck implants delivered by umbrella-bats. Earth scientist helps, his wife and another scientist fight it.

1956 The Mole People
77 M / 1.85:1 / UI / Uni
Director: Virgil W. Vogel
John Agar, Cynthia Patrick, Hugh Beaumont, Alan Napier, Nestor Paiva

Archeologists stumble upon underground remnant of Sumerian civilization, gone albino, who use humanoid mole-race (mole hands and mole-ish heads) as slaves. Throwback non-albino native woman and the (male) scientists fight to escape. Intro by Dr. Frank Baxter.

1956 Phantom From 10,000 Leagues
80 M / 1.85:1 / Milner / American Releasing
Director: Dan Milner
Kent Taylor, Cathy Downs, Michael Whalen, Helene Stanton

Scientist and government agent investigate corpses washed onto beach, answer is monster created by radioactivity from renegade scientist's atomic experiments which he hopes to sell to foreign powers.

1956 Satellite in the Sky UK
85 M / 2.35:1 / CLR (WarnerColor) / Tridelta (1-shot, Danzinger) / War
Director: Paul Dickson
Kieron Moore, Lois Maxwell, Donald Wolfit, Bryan Forbes

First flight of experimental rocket shaped spaceship favoring the fantasy engineering of Karl Hans Janske, hangared in elaborate underground complex and ramp launched on wheeled carriage, includes positioning tritonium bomb T-1 for test explosion. Cannot get away from bomb at last minute; threatening ship, crew and stowaway reporter. Cameos by Avro Vulcan, Folland Gnat.

1956 Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers
91 M / 1.85:1 / Tors / UA
Director: Winston Jones  Producer: Ivan Tors
Tom Towers (not the actor Tom Towers), Bert Freed, Nicholas Mariana, Delbert Newhouse, Robert Phillips, Olan Soule, Willis Sperry, Wendell Swanson, Les Tremayne, Harry Morgan (some voice-overs only)

Near-documentary dramatization which by its very subtitle is science fiction. Hits high points of canonical UFO lore 1947 to then-date, so somewhat dry, but 1950s sf movie professional standards of production make it sparkle.

1956 The Werewolf
19 M / 1.85:1 / Clover / Col
Director: Fred F. Sears
Steven Ritch, Don Megowan, Joyce Holden, Eleanore Tanin, Kim Charney

Amnesiac car wreck victim injected by reclusive scientists with radioactive wolf blood meant to be radiation sickness antidote. Serum has effect of turning man into werewolf, when agitated.

1956 World Without End
80 M / 2.55:1 / CLR / Allied Artists / Allied Artists
Director: Edward Bernds
Hugh Marlowe, Nancy Gates, Nelson Leigh, Rod Taylor

Rocket shaped spaceship from Earth does exploratory fly-by of Mars, but on return trip is thrown through timewarp and lands on nuclear-war wrecked Earth hundreds of years in future. Attacked by surface-dwelling mutant humans and animals, they find an underground sanctum of civilization, where after some trouble they mount assault on savage surface dwellers and by movie's end are ready for final title card "The Beginning."

1957 20 Million Miles to Earth
82 M / 1.85:1 / Morningside / Col
Director: Nathan Juran  Stopmotion effects: Ray Harryhausen
William Hopper, Joan Taylor, Frank Puglia, John Zaremba, Thomas Browne Henry, Tito Vuolo, Jan Arvan, Arthur Space, Bart Braverman, George Pelling

American rocket shaped spaceship returns from Venus, crash-lands in Mediterranean off Italy. Crew dies but canister containing Venusian egg is hauled to land by fishermen. A reptilian creature, the Ymir, hatches and grows and escapes from scientists, menaces Rome.

1957 The 27th Day
75 M / Romson / Col
Director: William Asher
Gene Barry, Valerie French, George Voskovec, Arnold Moss, Stefan Schnabel, Ralph Clanton, Fredrich Ledebur, Paul Birch, Paul Frees

Humanoid alien in saucer shaped spaceship, wanting to occupy Earth but culturally opposed to destroying life first-hand, gives five humans Earth-self-destruct buttons--one to each of an almost-randomly selected representative of five different Cold War countries.

1957 The Abominable Snowman UK
87 M / 2.35:1 (Hammerscope (Regalscope)) / Clarion (Hammer) / Fox
Director: Val Guest  Story basis: The Creature (TV) Nigel Kneale
Forrest Tucker, Peter Cushing, Maureen Connell, Richard Wattis, Robert Brown, Michael Brill, Wolfe Morris, Arnold Marle

Conscienceless American adventurer/huckster enlists English mountain climber botanist to join expedition in Himalayas above Buddhist monastery to catch a yeti. There is more to a yeti than meets the eye. US poster/promotional title: The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas, not sure about title on US prints of era.

1957 The Amazing Colossal Man
80 M / Malibu / AIP
Director: Bert I. Gordon
Glenn Langan, Cathy Downs, William Hudson, Larry Thor, James Seay, Frank Jenks, Russ Bender, June Jocelyn, Hank Patterson, Jimmy Cross

Army colonel attempts to save pilot of crashed plane near site of plutonium bomb test, bomb explodes and doses colonel with radiation. He survives and is taken to Army hospital where his burns heal but the radiation causes him to grow larger and larger. About 60-feet tall and crazy, he is pursued, and shot at Boulder Dam. Sequel: War of the Colossal Beast 1958.

1957 Astounding She-Monster
62 M / 1.85:1 / Hollywood International (1-shot) / AIP
Director: Ronald V. Ashcroft
Robert Clarke, Kenne Duncan, Marilyn Harvey, Jeanne Tatum, Shirley Kilpatrick

Kidnappers and victim show up at isolated house in woods and menace homeowner, but with arrival of "glowing" spaceship and "glowing" alien occupant--silent humanoid woman--crime is least of all their problems.

1957 Attack of the Crab Monsters
68 M / 1.78:1 (or 1.85:1) / Los Altos / Allied Artists
Director: Roger Corman
Richard Garland, Pamela Duncan, Russell Johnson, Leslie Bradley, Mel Welles, Ed Nelson, Richard H. Cutting, Beach Dickerson, Tony Miller, Charles B. Griffith

Isolated on remote Pacific island, scientists are menaced by crabs made giant by atom bomb tests and which, armed with the human minds of their victims, can create environmental catastrophes and communicate telepathically.

1957 Beginning of the End
76 M / 1.66:1 / AB-PT (American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres) / Republic
Director: Bert I. Gordon
Peter Graves, Peggie Castle, Morris Ankrum, Than Wyenn

Experiments at an agricultural station result in giant grasshoppers, which terrorize the cornbelt on their way to Chicago, which city will have to be nuked unless Department of Agriculture scientist, whose experiments caused 'em, can whup 'em.

1957 The Black Scorpion FANTASY
88 M / 1.85:1 / Amex (1-shot (Melford-Dietz)) / War
Director: Edward Ludwig  Stopmotion: supervisor Willis O'Brien
Richard Denning, Mara Corday, Carlos Rivas, Carlos Muzquiz, Mario Navarro, Pedro Galvan, Arturo Martinez, Pascual Garcia Pena

Volcano eruption in Mexico City releases giant drooling scorpions which then run amuck, American geologist fights them.

1957 The Brain From Planet Arous
70 M / 1.85:1 / Marquette / Howco
Director: Nathan Juran
John Agar, Joyce Meadows, Robert Fuller, Henry Travis, Thomas Browne Henry, Ken Terrell, E. Leslie Thomas, Tim Graham, Bill Giorgio, Morris Ankrum

Evil floating brain alien takes over human body to conquer Earth, good floating brain takes over different body to stop him. They come to Earth in ships which we see only as brilliant lights.

1957 Colossus of New York
70 M / 1.66:1 / Par / Par
Director: Eugene Lourie
John Baragrey, Mala Powers, Otto Kruger, Robert Hutton, Ross Martin, Charles Herbert, Ed Wolff

Brilliant surgeon puts brain of brilliant son into 10-foot tall robot with death ray eyes. Disassociation of brain from own body and human society causes change for worse (for said society in general and peace-workers at UN specifically) in personality, only renewed association with brain's son saves day.

1957 The Curse of Frankenstein UK
82 M / 1.66:1 (assume Hammerscope) / CLR (Eastmancolor) / Hammer / War
Director: Terence Fisher
Peter Cushing, Hazel Court, Robert Urquhart, Christopher Lee

Hammer's initial Frankenstein film, retells start of basic story in period as in novel. Sequel: The Revenge of Frankenstein UK 1958.

1957 The Cyclops
75 M / 1.78:1 / B & H (1-shot (B. Gordon & H. Schrage)) / Allied Artists
Director: Bert I. Gordon
James Craig, Gloria Talbott, Lon Chaney Jr., Tom Drake, Duncan "Dean" Parkin, Manuel Lopez, Vincent Padula

Woman finds missing fiance in Mexico, radiation having turned him (and miscellaneous fauna) giant sized. Insane and with one eye missing and other injured he is now bestial "Cyclops." Despite similarity of character and movie to Gordon's Amazing Colossal Man 1957 and similarity of appearance to beast in ACM's sequel War of the Colossal Beast 1958, Cyclops is not same character and precedes ACM by a few months--prints say © 1956.

1957 Daughter of Dr. Jekyll
71 M / 1.85:1 / Fim Ventures (1-shot) / Allied Artists
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer
John Agar, Gloria Talbott, Arthur Shields, John Dierkes

Young woman is told she is the daughter of Dr. Jekyll, and fears she is becoming monster which commits murders. nps

1957 Deadly Mantis
79 M / UI / Uni
Director: Nathan Juran
Craig Stevens, William Hopper, Alix Talton, Marge Blaine, Donald Randolph

Volcanic eruption at South Pole melts ice at North Pole (that's the sf), that releases frozen prehistoric praying mantis which heads south across Greenland through Canada and on to US mid-Atlantic states, befuddling scientists, military and sundry public service consumers all along the way.

1957 Enemy From Space UK Quatermass 2 1956
85 M / 1.66:1 / Hammer / UA
Director: Val Guest Story basis UK TV Quatermass II
Brian Donlevy, John Longden, Sidney James, Bryan Forbes

Spreckles of meteorites in England bring invasion of monstrous blobby aliens who infect humans and turn them into zombie-like embodiments of themselves, and who in turn use Quatermass's own habitat designs, pilfered, to incubate their invasion. Sequel to The Creeping Unknown 1956 UK The Quatermass Xperiment 1955, sequel: Five Million Years to Earth 1967 UK Quatermass and the Pit.

1957 From Hell it Came
73 M / 1.85:1 / Allied Artists / Allied Artists
Director: Dan Milner
Tod Andrews, Tina Carver, Linda Watkins, John McNamara, Chester Hayes

Radioactive fallout presumably from atomic bomb tests in South Pacific causes grave of murdered native to give rise to tree-monster, scientists on scene doing research must fight it. Tabonga! (Baranga in theatrical trailer!)

1957 The Giant Claw
75 M / 1.85:1 / Clover / Col
Director: Fred F. Sears
Jeff Morrow, Mara Corday, Morris Ankrum, Louis Merrill

UFO is giant bird with giant claws and flies at terrific speeds, able to protect itself with  anti-matter shield it wreaks havoc yet is difficult to destroy "safely." Much flying in stock footage military planes.

1957 I Was a Teenage Frankenstein
74 M / Santa Rosa / AIP
Director: Herbert L. Strock
Whit Bissell, Phyllis Coates, Robert Burton, Gary Conway

Body of a boy! Mind of a monster! Soul of an unearthly thing! And, teenaged! Frankenstein made him. Color footage of monster at end.

1957 I Was a Teenage Werewolf
76 M / 1.85:1 / Sunset / AIP
Director:  Gene Fowler Jr.
Michael Landon, Yvonne Lime, Whit Bissell, Tony Marshall

Doctor uses drugs and hypnosis to revert teenager to previous states, which include werewolf.

1957 The Incredible Petrified World FANTASY
70 M / 1.85:1 / GBM (assume Warren, then-current wife Geraldine Brianne Murphy--credited as dialogue coach (Bri Murphy) and also production assistant) / Governor (assume Warren)
Director: Jerry Warren
John Carradine, Robert Clarke, Phyllis Coates, Allen Windsor, Sheila Noonan, George Skaff, Maurice Bernard

Science-defying diving bell takes four people down, doesn't come up. They trek through underground caverns with fantastic menaces until volcano sends them back to surface.

1957 The Incredible Shrinking Man
81 M / 1.85:1 / UI / Uni
Director: Jack Arnold  Story basis: Richard Matheson The Shrinking Man
Grant Williams, Randy Stuart, April Kent, Paul Langton, Raymond Bailey, William Schallert, Frank Scannell, Billy Curtis

Husband and wife on small cabin cruiser pass through mist, man (already dosed with insecticide) on deck is coated with fallout, woman below deck is not. Man starts shrinking according to odd ratio, has physical and emotional/philosophic adventures within own neighborhood, and home (and basement, and basement window, and--).

1957 Invasion of the Saucer Men
69 M / Malibu / AIP
Director: Edward L. Cahn
Steve Terrell, Gloria Castillo, Frank Gorshin, Raymond Hatton

"A True Story of a Flying Saucer," the (sorta-saucer-shaped) spaceship lands near lover's lane in hick town, teen lovers run over and kill one vaguely humanoid (short, but enormous heads) alien occupant, but its needle-tipped hand still lives. Military accidentally destroy ship, teenagers foil remaining aliens with car headlights.

1957 The Invisible Boy
90 M / 1.85:1 / MGM / MGM
Director: Herman Hoffman
Richard Eyer, Philip Abbott, Diane Brewster, Harold J. Stone

Scientist's young son co-opted by mainframe super-computer bent on domination of Earth, to assemble and activate robot peripheral Robbie (see Forbidden Planet 1956) which in turn bonds with son. There is a flight in rocket shaped spaceship. Contextual evidence that this Robbie is literally Forbidden Planet's Robbie.

1957 Kronos
78 M / 2.35:1 (Regalscope) / Regal / Fox
Director: Kurt Neumann
Jeff Morrow, Barbara Lawrence, John Emery, George O'Hanlon, Morris Ankrum, Kenneth Alton, John Parrish, Jose Gonzales-Gonzales, Marjorie Stapp, Robert Shayne

Aliens in saucer shaped spaceship (called an asteroid in film--and which is impervious to V2s launched to stop it) unleash walking skyscraper sized metal monster on Earth which absorbs energy--including atomic bombs--which makes it ever bigger. They can control humans, either by inhabiting them or using energetic possession--they or the possessing energy sometimes looking like electrical discharge, sometimes like liquid solder.

1957 The Land Unknown
78 M / 2.35:1 / UI / Uni
Director: Virgil W. Vogel
Jock Mahoney, Shawn Smith, William Reynolds, Henry Brandon

Three men and a woman explore warm crater in Little America, Antarctica, in Navy helicopter (the photogenic Sikorsky H5), discover lush climate and Mesozoic world which includes dinosaurs. They crash.

1957 The Man Without a Body
80 M / Filmplays (1-shot) / ???
Director: Charles Saunders, W. Lee Wilder
Robert Hutton, George Coulouris, Julia Arnall, Nadja Regin

Scientist can cure millionaire with brain tumor with, get this, brain transplant. Donor will be, get this, Nostradamus. Ultimately, get this, full head transplant is accomplished with, get this, unsatisfactory results.

1957 The Man Who Turned to Stone
71 M / 1.85:1 / Clover / Col
Director: László Kardos
Victor Jory, William Hudson, Charlotte Austin, Jean Willes, Ann Doran, Paul Cavanagh

Doctor and staff, hundreds of years old, maintain their lives by harvesting life force in blood of young inmates of women's prison which they have arranged to run. Without renewal, they petrify. Process leaves victims dead, reportedly of heart attacks.

1957 Monolith Monsters
77 M / 1.85:1 / UI / Uni
Director: John Sherwood
Lola Albright, Grant Williams, Les Tremayne, Trevor Bardette

Chunks of meteorite which lands in California desert will, under influence of water, grow to giant size or mineralize a human.

1957 The Monster That Challenged the World
83 M / 1.85:1 / Gramercy / UA
Director: Arnold Laven
Tim Holt, Audrey Dalton, Hans Conried, Harlan Warde, Jody McCrea, Max Showalter, Mimi Gibson, Gordon Jones, Marjorie Stapp, Charles Tannen

Earthquake allows super-sized sea monkeys, sorta, to hatch and menace countryside, they spread via waterways. Two or three military guys fight them to save world.

1957 The Night the World Exploded
64 M / 1.85:1 / Clover / Col
Director: Fred F. Sears
Kathryn Grant, William Leslie, Tris Coffin, Raymond Greenleaf

Wildcat scientists can predict earthquakes, and discover in Carlsbad Caverns new element which is explosive when dry working its way to Earth's surface.

1957 Not of This Earth
67 M / 1.85:1 / Los Altos / Allied Artists
Director: Roger Corman
Paul Birch, Beverly Garland, Morgan Jones, William Roerick

Chunky white-eyed humanoid alien comes to Earth via teleporter for fresh blood, as nuclear wars on home planet have made theirs unhealthy. His eyes, when not protected with wraparound Ray Bans, can kill and destroy. Victims are teleported to his planet. For himself, he hires private nurse and buys blood for transfusions. Some versions run longer via repeated footage, including effective pre-credits sequence.

1957 Rodan JAPAN Radon the Sky Monster 1956
72 M / CLR (EastmanColor) / Toho / DCA
Director: Ishirô Honda
Kenji Sahara, Kumi Shirakawa, Akihiko Hirata, Akio Kobori

Likely born from eggs from outer space or ancient Earthly ones inexplicably still fresh and affected by contemporary radiation which seeped with groundwater into underground nest, two giant pteranodon-ish flying reptiles fly supersonic, mere sonic boom or air displaced by wings destroy and kill. Even massive military effort seems inadequate to threat.

1957 She Devil
77 M / 2.25:1  (Regalscope) / Regal / Fox
Director: Kurt Neumann  Story basis: Stanley G. Weinbaum The Adaptive Ultimate
Mari Blanchard, Jack Kelly, Albert Dekker, John Archer

Experimental medical treatment saves life of woman, who then possesses super-powers of survival.

1957 The Unearthly
73 M / 1.85 / AB-PT (American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres) / Republic
Director: Boris Petroff
John Carradine, Myron Healy, Allison Hayes, Grace Thomas

Mad scientist installs artificial "17th gland" in heads of subjects, mostly beautiful women, culled from his handy psychiatric hospital with object of creating non-aging people, creates zombie-like goons instead.

1957 The Unknown Terror
76 M / 2.25:1  (Regalscope) / Regal / Fox
Director: Charles Marquis Warren
John Howard, Mala Powers, Paul Richards.

While searching for woman's brother in remote Mexican jungle, husband and wife  discover scientist who has created aggressive fungus which kills humans.

1957 X: The Unknown UK 1956
82 M / Hammer / War
Director: Leslie Norman
Dean Jagger, Edward Chapman, Leo McKern, Marianne Brauns, William Lucas, Peter Hammond, Anthony Newley, Jameson Clark, Ian MacNaughton, John Harvey

Brit soldiers on Geiger counter exercise find menace under Earth surface, proves to be blob which feeds on radioactivity, growing bigger, and burns people to atoms. Crusty scientist imagines it could be form of life which evolved underground. Said crusty scientist fights it.

1958 Attack of the 50 Foot Woman
65 M / 1.85:1 / Woolner Bros / Allied Artists
Director: Nathan Juran
Starring: Allison Hayes, William Hudson, Yvette Vickers, Roy Gordon, George Douglas, Ken Terrell, Otto Waldis

Woman encounters 20 foot spherical space ship with humanoid 30 foot alien in it on RT 66 in desert, later she grows to 50 foot height and attempts to exact lackadaisical revenge on philandering, murderous, thieving husband.

1958 Attack of the Puppet People
79 M / Alta Vista / AIP
Director: Bert I. Gordon
John Agar, John Hoyt, June Kenny, Susan Gordon

Mad, and lonely, scientist invents person-shrinker, he stores them alive but comatose in jars until he takes them out and revives them for amusement.

1958 The Blob
82 M / 1.66:1 / CLR (Deluxe) / Fairview-Tonylyn / Par
Director: Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.
Steven McQueen, Aneta Corsaut, Earl Rowe, Olin Howlin, Steven Chase, John Benson

Meteorite contains blobby life which totally consumes living things and grows by volume of victim. Teenage hot-rodders save town, day. The end? "As long as the Arctic stays cold."

1958 The Brain Eaters
60 M / AIP / AIP
Director: Bruno VeSota  Producer: Roger Corman 
Ed Nelson, Alan Frost, Jack Hill, Joanna Lee, Jody Fair, Leonard Nemoy (Nimoy misspelled in credits)

Little hairy slugs use screw shaped terra-ship from inside Earth to come to surface after 250 million years to control humans via latching onto back of their necks. Owes enough elements to Robert A. Heinlein The Puppet Masters to have been sued.

1958 Cosmic Monsters UK The Strange World of Planet X
75 M / Artistes Alliance / DCA
Director: Gilbert Gunn
Forrest Tucker, Gaby André, Martin Benson, Wyndham Goldie

Scientist at remote British lab's magnetic fields affect people and objects, mutating insects into giants and altering human behavior. Humanoid alien comes to Earth in saucer shaped spaceship to give advice. Vaguely reminiscent of The Day the Earth Stood Still 1951.

1958 The Crawling Eye UK The Trollenberg Terror
84 M / 1.66:1 / Tempean / DCA
Director: Quentin Lawrence
Forrest Tucker, Laurence Payne, Jennifer Jayne, Janet Munro

Monstrous alien invaders, who require cold, base on Alpine mountain The Trollenberg, killing and sometimes possessing humans.

1958 Curse of the Faceless Man
67 M / 1.85:1 / Vogue (Robert E. Kent)  / UA
Director: Edward L. Cahn
Richard Anderson, Elaine Edwards, Adele Mara, Luis Van Rooten, Gar Moore, Felix Locher, Jan Arvan, Bob Bryant

Archaeologists find gladiator sealed in Pompeian lava, his life preserved by underground radiation he emerges and looks for reincarnated lover. Griffith Observatory doubles as the Museo di Pompeii.

1958 Earth vs. The Spider, released as The Spider (poster title) with title Earth vs. The Spider credit intact on prints
72 M / 1.85:1 / AIP / AIP
Director: Bert I. Gordon
Ed Kemmer, June Kenney, Eugene Persson, Gene Roth, Hal Torey, June Jocelyn, Mickey Finn, Sally Fraser, Howard Wright, Troy Patterson

Earth finds giant spider in cave. Believing it has been killed Earth hauls it to a high school, rock music played at dance revives it. One assumes it is gigantic due to radiation-induced mutation. One assumes Earth is a small town with many teenagers.

1958 Fiend Without a Face UK
74 M / 1.66:1 / Producers Assocs / MGM
Director: Arthur Crabtree
Marshall Thompson, Kynaston Reeves, Kim Parker,  Stanley Maxted

Deaths near military base, evidently by removal of brain and spinal cord though small hole in neck, and unexplained unseen creatures in vicinity prove to be work of renegade genius who is stealing power from base's nuclear reactor. Given yet more power, creatures become fully visible.

1958 The Flame Barrier
70 M / Gramercy / UA
Director: Paul Landres
Starring: Arthur Franz, Kathleen Crowley, Robert Brown, Vincent Padula, Rodd Redwing.

Fallen satellite, launched via stock footage of Vanguard rocket, tangles with 200-mile-high flame barrier and returns to Earth covered in a hot mass of living protoplasm, which continues to grow in size as it devours local villagers. Wealthy amateur space enthusiast tries to find it in jungle-y Yucatan, disappears, and is sought by wife.

1958 The Fly
94 M / 2.25:1  / CLR (Deluxe) / Fox / Fox
Director: Kurt Neumann
Vincent Price, Herbert Marshall, David Hedison, Patricia Owens, Kathleen Freeman, Betty Lou Gerson, Charles Herbert, Eugene Borden, Torben Meyer, Charles Tannen

Canadian scientist invents teleportation machines, but mingles his and housefly's atoms by accident. Sequel: Return of the Fly 1959

1958 Frankenstein 1970
83 M / 2.35:1  / Aubrey Schenck / Allied Artists
Director: Howard W. Koch
Boris Karloff, Tom Duggan, Jana Lund, Donald (Red) Barry, Mike Lane

A post-WWII Frankenstein uses atomic energy from his own reactor in his monster-making routine. Non-Universal Frankenstein, Karloff plays the Baron.

1958 Frankenstein's Daughter
85 M / 1.85:1 / Layton / Astor
Director: Richard E. Cunha
John Ashley, Sandra Knight, Donald Murphy, Sally Todd, Harold Lloyd Jr., Felix Locher, Wolfe Barzell, John Zaremba, Robert Dix, Harry Wilson

Uncouth womanizing grandson of original Dr. F creates own, fresh, creature in contemporary suburban Los Angeles, uses men for body, woman for head (not evident from the creature makeup). Also converts another woman into roaming Ms. Hyde style monster via chemicals. Frankenstein figuratively refers to creature as "daughter." Subplot of women wearing bathing suits due to prevalence of swimming pools leads to appearance of The Paul Cavanaugh Trio at a pool party.

1958 From the Earth to the Moon
101 M / 1.85:1 / CLR / Waverly-RKO / War (RKO went defunct)
Director: Byron Haskin  Story basis Jules Verne From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon
Joseph Cotton, George Sanders, Debra Paget, Don Dubbins, Patric Knowles, Carl Esmond, Henry Daniell, Melville Cooper, Ludwig Stössel, Morris Ankrum

Hinky version of Verne classic with enough period elements, character actors and special effects to be satisfactory.

1958 Giant From the Unknown
77 M / Screencraft / Astor
Director: Richard E. Cunha
Ed Kemmer, Sally Fraser, Bob Steele, Morris Ankrum, Buddy Baer

Conquistadorian-era giant remains alive via leached minerals in soil, archeologists in modern California dig him up and he runs amok.

1958 How to Make a Monster
73 M / 1.85:1 / AIP / AIP
Director: Herbert L. Strock
Robert H. Harris, Paul Brinegar, Gary Conway, Gary Clarke, Malcolm Atterbury, Dennis Cross, Morris Ankrum

Makeup artist sacked by AIP-like studio uses medicated makeup to make his own monsters whom he will control to exact revenge.

1958 I Married a Monster From Outer Space
78 M / 1.85:1 / Par / Par
Director: Gene Fowler Jr.
Tom Tryon, Gloria Talbott, Peter Baldwin, Robert Ivers, Jean Carson

Monstrous aliens come to Earth in never-clearly-seen space ships to take identities of human men who have been recently married, object: Regeneration of their failing race. Humans are kept in ships and broadcast biotelemetry to duplicates. To be effective, they need to be too human.

1958 It! The Terror From Beyond Space
69 M / Robert E. Kent / AU
Director: Edward L. Cahn
Marshall Thompson, Shawn Smith, Kim Spalding, Ann Doran, Dabbs Greer

Earth loses contact with first expedition to Mars, the second rocket shaped spaceship sent for rescue finds one lone survivor who doesn't know what killed the others. On the way back, they find out.

1958 The Lost Missile
70 M / William Berke / UA
Director: William Berke
Robert Loggia, Ellen Parker, Phillip Pine, Larry Kerr

Long elegant rocket shaped missile from outer space is forced into an orbit within the Earth's troposphere, its exhaust is mega-hot and destroying everything beneath it.

1958 Missile Monsters, edited from serial Flying Disc Man From Mars 1950
75 M / Republic / Republic
Director: Fred C. Brannon
Walter Reed, James Craven, Gregory Gaye, Lois Collier

"Semi-disc" shaped plane (a delta-winged teardrop) is built by humanoid Martian (arrives in rocket shaped capsule) would-be Earth conqueror who allies with Earth industrialist. They build V1-like aerial torpedoes (missiles) for atomic warheads.

1958 Missile to the Moon
78 M / Layton / Astor
Director: Richard E. Cunha
Gary Clarke, Cathy Downs, K.T. Stevens, Michael Whalen, Laurie Mitchell, Nina Bara, Richard Travis, Tommy Cook, Leslie Parrish, Lee Roberts

Scientist, later discovered to be from Moon, makes expedition to Moon in V2 with two shanghaied escaped criminals and accidentally-sealed-in-rocket partner and partner's fiance, dies on way. On Moon they are chased underground by walking rocks and find society of beautiful women who need a new home with oxygen, and a giant spider. Reminiscent of Cat-Women of the Moon.

1958 Monster From Green Hell
71 M / 1.85:1 / Grosse-Krasne / DCA
Director: Kenneth G. Crane
Jim Davis, Robert E, Griffin, Joel Fluellen, Barbara Turner, Eduardo Ciannelli, Vladimir Sokoloff

Scientist sends V2 rocket-loads of animals into space from largish spaceport in Monument Valley and returning them to check effects of exposure to space-radiation, the one that stays up a long time and lands in inaccessible African jungle had wasps in it. They grow big and must be destroyed before they reproduce.

1958 Monster on the Campus
77 M / UA / UA
Director: Jack Arnold
Arthur Franz, Joanna Moore, Judson Pratt, Nancy Walters, Troy Donahue, Whit Bissell

Irradiated coelacanth blood will regress anything it affects to earlier, savage and sometimes large evolutionary state, college professors included.

1958 Night of the Blood Beast
65 M / AIP / AIP
Director: Bernard L. Kowalsk
John Baer, Angela Greene, Ed Nelson, Georgianna Carter, Michael Emmet, Tyler McVey

First Earth astronaut, flying stubby staged rocket, returns from the first space mission dead. But he gets better. Meanwhile a large beast is terrorizing the mission base. And the astronaut's body is host to many many baby ones.

1958 Queen of Outer Space
79 M / 2.25:1  / CLR (Deluxe) / Allied Artists / Allied Artists
Director: Edward Bernds
ZsaZsa Gabor, Eric Fleming, Dave Willock, Laurie Mitchell, Lisa Davis, Paul Birch, Patrick Waltz, Joi Lansing

Future 1985 Earth rocket shaped spaceship (launched as an Atlas--fueled by putting fuel in V2--and once space-borne a proper sleek plane-winged sf rocket) with 4 man (all-male, GF Lansing remains on Earth) crew heads for Earth-orbit wheel shaped space station, but mysterious ray knocks it off course and destroys station. After crash landing crew figures out they are on Venus. Nearly-all-woman civilization ruled by monomaniacal queen intends to destroy Earth with ray weapon. Earth men and turncoat Venusian women who fall in love with them fight queen. Reminiscent of Cat-Women of the Moon. Cold opening over 10 minutes long.

1958 The Revenge of Frankenstein UK
89 M / 1.66:1 / CLR / Hammer / Col
Director: Terence Fisher
Peter Cushing, Francis Matthews, Eunice Gayson, Margaret Conrad, Michael Gwynn

Continued adventures of Hammer's Dr. F still set in period, a second monster is made. Sequel to The Curse of Frankenstein UK 1957, sequel: The Evil of Frankenstein UK 1964.

1958 Satan's Satellites, edited from serial Zombies of the Stratosphere 1952
70 M / Republic / Republic
Director: Fred C. Bannon
Judd Holdren, Lane Bradford, Stanley Waxman, Wilson Wood, Aline Towne, Leonard Nimoy, Dale Van Sickel, Tom Steele, Roy Barcroft

Rocket Man fights potential conquerors of Earth, humanoid Martians flying rocket shaped spaceships. Arguably, sequel to Lost Planet Airmen, arguably, sequel: Retik The Moon Menace 1966 (see DO NOT QUALIFY Radar Men From the Moon 1952 for more info).

1958 She Demons
77 M / 1.85:1 / Screencraft / Astor
Director: Richard E. Cunha
Irish McCalla, Tod Griffin, Victor Sen Yung, Rudolph Anders, Gene Roth

Variegated castaways, including beautiful woman, find hurricane-lashed island already occupied by atrocity-committing Nazi doctor and his Nazi henchmen. Doctor swaps secretions, or something, between beautiful women and his wife to fix burn-scarred wife's face, which doesn't work and leaves said beautiful women with nasty faces and dispositions. Doctor also researching volcano energy source as sideline, it and aerial bombardment feature in resolution.

1958 The Space Children
69 M / 1.85:1 / Par / Par
Director: Jack Arnold
Michel Ray, Adam Williams, Peggy Webber, Jackie Coogan, Richard Shannon, Raymond Bailey, Sandy Descher, Ty Hungerford (Hardin), Russell Johnson, Johnny Crawford

Blobby alien lands without any evidence of spaceship--just fuzzy beam of light--on beach near rocket test site, telepathically enlists aid of children of rocket scientists to hinder launch of nuclear weapons platform.

1958 Space Master X-7
71 M / 2.25:1  (Regalscope) / Regal / Fox
Director: Edward Bernds
Bill Williams, Lyn Thomas, Robert Ellis, Paul Frees, Moe Howard

External-Martian-blood-infection Panic in the Streets situation when returning rocket shaped probe to Mars brings ever-growing soon to be world-covering stuff back in form of spores.

1958 Teenage Cave Man
65 M / 1.85:1 / Malibu / AIP
Director: Roger Corman
Robert Vaughn, Leslie Bradley, June Jocelyn, Robert Shayne, Jonathan Haze, Frank DeKova, Ed Nelson

Typical movie caveman life, including stock footage "dinosaurs," doesn't satisfy one recently teenaged cavemen, his search for knowledge ultimately leads to discovery of spoiler-sf-explanation of all things.

1958 Teenage Monster
65 M / 1.85:1 / Marquette / Howco
Director: Jacques R. Marquette
Anne Gwynne, Stuart Wade, Gloria Castillo, Charles Courtney

In Old West town, teenager is turned into monstrous-humanoid (much like the Filmation Groovie Goolie Wolfie of a future decade) killer by meteor.

1958 Terror From the Year 5000
66 M / La Lolla / AIP
Director: Robert J. Gurney Jr.
Ward Costello, Joyce Holden, Frederic Downs, John Stratton

Wildcat scientists on island construct and operate time machine, trading artifacts back and forth with radiation-ravaged future. Unauthorized use brings human visitor from then, to everyone's detriment.

1958 War of the Colossal Beast
68 M / 1.66:1 / Carmel / AIP
Director: Bert I. Gordon
Sally Fraser, Roger Pace, Duncan "Dean" Parkin, Russ Bender, Charles Stewart, Rico Alaniz, George Becwar, Robert Hernandez, June Jocelyn, Roy Gordon

Now with permanent brain damage, ol' Colossal is discovered to have survived defeat at Boulder Dam and washed downstream to Mexico. Captured and returned to US he escapes to run amok some more. Griffith Observatory doubles as the Griffith Observatory. Color footage of monster at end. Sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man 1957.

1958 War of the Satellites
72 M / Santa Cruz / Allied Artists
Director: Roger Corman
Richard Devon, Dick Miller, Susan Cabot, Michael Fox, Robert Shayne, Eric Sinclair, Mitzi McCall, Bruno VeSota, Roger Corman

Never seen aliens use "magneto-nebulous cloud masses" to prevent UN/Earth from establishing orbital presence around Earth. UN uses unique rocket shaped spaceships which transport sectional Sputnik shaped satellites. Aliens replace key scientist--who can then split into duplicates when necessary--to further their aim. UN spaceships equipped with Barcalounger-like upholstered chaise lounges for liftoff.

1958 The Woman Eater UK
70 M / 1.66:1 / Fortress / Col
Director: Charles Saunders
George Coulouris, Vera Day, Peter Wayn, Joyce Gregg

Mad scientist feeds young women to tree while drums are played in imported native ceremony to create serum to restore life to dead wife.

1959 The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock
75 M / 1.85:1 / Col / Col
Director: Sydney Miller
Lou Costello, Dorothy Provine, Gale Gordon, Jimmy Conlin, Charles Lane

Radiation turns woman into 30 foot giant. Chubby delivery boy must marry her.

1959 4D Man
85 M / 1.85:1 / CLR (Deluxe) / Fairview / Uni
Director: Irvin Shortess Yeaworth Jr.
Robert Lansing, Lee Meriwether, James Congdon, Robert Strauss, Edgar Stehli, Patty Duke, Guy Raymond

Scientist brothers invent a machine to make a human 4th dimensional and pass through matter. One uses it on himself but each time he passes through matter he ages. If he passes through humans, he steals their youth but kills them.

1959 The Alligator People
73 M / 2.25:1  / Fox / Fox
Director: Roy Del Ruth
Beverly Garland, George Macready, Richard Crane, Lon Chaney Jr., Frieda Inescort, Bruce Bennett

Reptile genes given to accident victim turn him into half man (body), half alligator (head).

1959 The Angry Red Planet
83 M / 1.66:1 / CLR (PatheColor) / AIP / AIP
Director: Ib Melchior
Gerald Mohr, Nora Hayden, Les Tremayne, Jack Kruschen, Paul Hahn, J. Edward McKinley, Tom Daly, Don Lamond, Edward Innes, Gordon Barnes

Rocket shaped spaceship from Earth goes to Mars, they observe flora and fauna of uninhabited planet, return with warning (and giant-amoeba disease). Martian scenes shot for and processed in (Moe Howard's son-in-law) Norman Maurer's CineMagic, a matte process allowing painted backgrounds to appear in areas washed out of live action footage staged, shot and printed in high contrast, and rendered in a red duotone. A similar process was spoofed in one of the Stooges color shorts from Maurer.

1959 The Atomic Submarine
80 M / Gorham (1-shot) / Allied Artists
Director: Spencer Gordon Bennet
Tom Conway, Dick Foran, Brett Halsey, Arthur Franz, Selmer Jackson, Bob Steele, Victor Varconi, Joi Lansing

USS Tigershark, an atomic sub of near future, investigates loss of shipping in Arctic (GF Lansing remains on on land), finds undersea saucer shaped alien spaceship. They ram it, get stuck, enter and see monstrous alien.

1959 Attack of the Giant Leeches AKA The Giant Leeches (poster title)
62 M / AIP / AIP
Director: Bernard L. Kowalski
Ken Clark, Yvette Vickers, Jan Shepard, Michael Emmet

Floridian Everglades swamp leeches, grown giant size due to atomic radiation from Cape Canaveral(!), suck on live people stowed in caves accessible only underwater.

1959 The Cosmic Man
72 M / 1.85:1 / Futura (1-shot) / Allied Artists
Director: Herbert S. Greene
John Carradine, Bruce Bennett, Angela Greene, Paul Langton, Scotty Morrow, Lyn Osborn, Walter Maslow, Herbert Lytton, Hal Torey, Alan Wells

Spherical spaceship lands on Earth, trenchcoat and sunglasses clad and somewhat invisible Cosmic Man emerges and scares civilians and military but actually brings message of peace. Reminiscent of The Day the Earth Stood Still 1951.

1959 First Man Into Space UK
77 M / 1.66:1 / Amalgamated-Allied Artists / MGM
Director: Robert Day
Marshall Thompson, Marla Landi, Bill Edwards, Robert Ayres

Pilot brother of boss of US rocket plane experimental flights takes the Y-13 beyond the experimental parameters, comes down with plane and himself crusted over with meteorite crud, crash lands. He is alive inside, but the crust needs blood, human or bovine, to live. White Sands NM looks a tad tweedy.

1959 The Giant Behemoth UK
80 M / 1.66:1 / Diamond (1-shot)-Artistes Alliance / Allied Artists
Director: Douglas Hickox, Eugene Lourie
Gene Evans, André Morell, John Turner, Leigh Madison, Jack MacGowran

Created by dumping radioactive waste in the Atlantic, paleosaurus-like monster of Gorgo size and Godzilla powers heads for London (observed from the photogenic Sikorsky H-5). It is itself radioactive, so its physical destruction is problematic.

1959 The Giant Gila Monster:
74 M / Hollywood Pictures (2-shot) / McLendon-Radio Pictures (2-shot)
Director: Ray Kellogg
Don Sullivan, Fred Graham, Lisa Simone, Shug Fisher

Sf by the skin of its teeth, some small desert town types including many hotrod teens assume mineral salts have caused gila monster to grow to giant size, they fight it and win.

1959 Gigantis the Fire Monster JAPAN Gojira's Counter Attack 1955
78 M / Toho / War
Director: Motoyoshi Oda
Hiroshi Koizumi, Setsuko Wakayama, Haruo Nakajima, Takeo Oikawa, Masao Shimizu, Minoru Chiaki, Takashi Shimura

Second Godzilla film, Godzilla (named Gigantis--presumably to avoid trouble with Avco Embassy (Joseph E. Levine), which released first film and had claim on original US name) fights new monster Anguirus amongst cities in Japan. Sequel to Godzilla, King of the Monsters! 1956, sequel: King Kong vs. Godzilla 1964.

1959 The H-Man JAPAN Beauty and the Liquid Man 1958
79 M / 2.25:1  (TohoScope) / CLR (EastmanColor) / Toho / Col
Director: Ishiro Honda
Yumi Shirakawa, Kenji Sahara, Akihiko Hirata, KoreyaSenda

Radiation from H-bomb test makes Tokyo drug trafficer and others into jelly-blobs, which in turn can dissolve other people via touch, eating them. In Tokyo-noir, they do so and upsets both gangsters and cops who pursue them.

1959 Have Rocket -- Will Travel
76 M / 1.85:1 / Col / Col
Director: David Lowell Rich
Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Joe DeRita, Jerome Cowan, Anna Lisa, Bob Colbert, Don Lamond

The Boys (see cast) are NASA janitors who accidentally take rocket shaped spaceship to Venus, meet planet-ruling computer on human-less planet.

1959 The Hideous Sun Demon
74 M / 1.85:1 / Clarke-King (1-shot) / Pacific International Enterprises
Directors: Robert Clarke, Tom Boutross
Robert Clarke, Patricia Manning, Nan Peterson, Patrick Whyte

A scientist is accidentally exposed to radiation, which causes him to turn into lizard monster if struck by sunlight.

1959 Invisible Invaders
67 M / Robert E. Clark / UA
Director: Edward L. Cahn
John Agar, Jean Byron, Philip Tonge, Robert Hutton, John Carradine, Paul Langton, Hal Torey, Eden Hartford, Don Kennedy, Chuck Niles

Aliens, who have roosted on the Moon for thousands of years, decide to now take over Earth before we can mess them up, coming in saucer shaped spaceship and possessing bodies of recently dead to do it. They are invisible when on Earth.

1959 Island of Lost Women
71M / Jaguar Productions / War
Director: Frank Tuttle
Jeff Richards, John Smith, Venetia Stevenson, Diane Jergens, June Blair, Alan Napier

Disillusioned A-Bomb scientist, with 3 beautiful daughters (who have had no direct contact with outside world), has lived in underground bomb shelter filled with his super-science apparatus since end of WWII on uncharted Pacific island; two men--newsman and pilot--land stricken plane there.

1959 Journey to the Center of the Earth
132 M / 2.25:1  / CLR (Deluxe) / Fox / Fox
Director: Henry Levin  Story basis: Jules Verne Journey to the Center of the Earth
Pat Boone, James Mason, Arlene Dahl, Diane Baker, Peter Ronson, Thayer David, Robert Adler, Alan Napier, Ben Wright

Full Hollywood treatment of the Jules Verne story of a small expedition retracing steps of lone explorer to the center of the Earth.

1959 The Killer Shrews
69 M / 1.85:1 / Hollywood Pictures (2-shot) / McLendon-Radio Pictures (2-shot)
Director: Ray Kellogg
James Best, Ingrid Goude, Ken Curtis, Gordon McLendon

Scientist on isolated island, attempting to alleviate problems feeding population, makes shrews of giant size. Random group of people trapped there by hurricane become last source of food for hungry shrews.

1959 Li'l Abner
144 M / 1.85:1 / CLR / Par / Par
Director: Melvin Frank
Peter Palmer, Leslie Parrish, Stubby Kaye, Julie Newmar, Stella Stevens

Full Hollywoodized version of Broadway musical, unfortunately missing Edie Adams but with the estimable Leslie Parrish. Military needs to remove population of Dogpatch for atomic bomb tests, community offers super-vitalizing tonic as evidence of community worth.

1959 The Man Who Could Cheat Death UK
83 M / 1.66:1 / CLR / Cadoger (1-shot)-Hammer / Par
Director: Terence Fisher
Anton Diffring, Hazel Court, Christopher Lee, Arnold Marlé

Man whose life has been extended to unnatural length by surgical replacement of secret gland taken from beautiful young women victims must find new surgeon to replace old one. Remake of The Man in Half Moon Street.

1959 The Monster of Piedras Blancas
71 M / 1.85:1 / Vanwick / Filmservice
Director: Irvin Berwick
Les Tremayne, Forrest Lewis, John Harmon, Frank Arvidson, Jeanne Carmen, Don Sullivan, Pete Dunn, Joseph La Cava, Wayne Berwick

Creature From the Black Lagoonish creature tires of fish provided by California coast lighthouse keeper and commences eating townspeople. Thinnest of sf threads (young marine biologist and town doctor attempt to type creature) rescue this from FANTASY designation or banishment for "no sf basis."

1959 The Mouse That Roared UK
83 M / 1.85:1 / CLR (EastmanColor) / Highroad-Open Road / Col
Director: Jack Arnold
Peter Sellers, Jean Seberg, William Hartnell, David Kossoff, Leo McKern

Intentionally pre-industrial country conquers world by accidentally winning war with US by capturing both Earth-destroying hydrogen-4 "Q-bomb" and its inventor in New York City and transporting them back to Europe. Sequel: The Mouse on the Moon 1963.

1959 The Mysterians JAPAN Earth Defense Force 1957
85 M / 2.25:1  (TohoScope) / CLR (EastmanColor) / Toho / MGM
Director: Ishiro Honda
Kenji Sahara, Yumi Shirakawa, Momoko Kochi, Akihiko Hirata

Mysterians need women! And our planet to boot, to restart their civilization, having destroyed own with nuclear war. Earth defenses rally and match technology of humanoid aliens who arrive in saucer-y spaceships and the battle takes place over, on and under the ground as Earth matches them tit for tat. Space opera writ grand, and a really really big robot. Sikorsky H5 cameo.

1959 Plan 9 From Outer Space
79 M / Reynolds (1-shot) / DCA
Director: Edward D. Wood Jr.
Gregory Walcott, Duke Moore, Dudley Manlove, Tor Johnson, Bela Lugosi, Tom Keene, Mona McKinnon, Joanna Lee, Lyle Talbot, Vampira

Humanoid aliens in saucer shaped spaceship come to Earth to conquer it, using bodies of recently dead as slaves. Released randomly during last half of 1958, SFFot50s accepts the 1959 general release date.

1959 Return of the Fly
78 M / 2.25:1  / API / Fox
Director: Edward Bernds
Vincent Price, Brett Halsey, David Franklin, John Sutton, Dan Seymour, Danielle DeMetz, Jack Daly, Michael Mark

Now grown-up son of original fly-scientist reconstructs father's matter transporter devices, and guess what? Yup. What are the odds? Sequel to The Fly 1958, sequel: Curse of the Fly 1965.

1959 The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy MEXICO Aztec Mummy Against the Humanoid Robot 1958
65 M / Cinematografica Calderon / Azteka?
Director: Rafael Portillo
Angelo De Steffani, Luis Aceves Castañeda

Aztec Mummy's mad scientist nemesis Dr. Krupp sics his super-powered fighting robot (with human brain! still in head!) on him. Spanish-language version released in US in 1959, dubbed version in 1960s.

Teenage Zombies (1959)
73 M / GBM / Governor (see The Incredible Petrified World 1957)
Director: Jerry Warren
Don Sullivan, Katherine Victor, Steve Conte, J.L.D. Morrison

Teenagers stranded on island are final subjects of experimental nerve gas that turns victims into zombies, developed by evil scientist on behalf of eastern bloc country intent on conquering US.

1959 Teenagers From Outer Space AKA Killers From Outer Space
86 M / 1.85:1 / Tom Graeff / War
Director: Tom Graeff
David Love, Dawn Anderson, Bryan Grant, Harvey B. Dunn, Tom Locklear (Tom Graeff), Robert King Moody

Humanoid aliens in unique auger shaped spaceship with saucer shaped top come to Earth to use it as farm for giant black lobsters, teen alien boy and teen Earth girl team up to foil plan.

1959 Terror Is a Man
89 M / Lynn-Romero & Premiere / Valiant
Director: Gerardo de Leon
Francis Lederer, Greta Thyssen, Richard Derr, Oscar Keesee

Concepts from Island of Doctor Moreau reworked, right down to island setting.

1959 The Tingler
82 M / 1.85:1 / Col / Col
Director: William Castle
Vincent Price, Judith Evelyn, Darryl Hickman, Patricia Cutts

Doctor is convinced human fear feeds creature living inside us, and which is diminished by our screaming. If we can't scream, it might get so big it could jump right out of us and run around. Original prints of this b&w film had one sequence with a single element seen in color for shock value, SSFot50s is convinced b&w footage had color matted in and printed on color stock spliced into each print. LSD use.

1959 The Wasp Woman
66 M / 1.85:1 / Film Group Feature (1-shot)-Santa Cruz / Filmgroup
Director: Roger Corman
Susan Cabot, Anthony Eisley, Barboura Morris, William Roerick

Cosmetics queen uses wasp(!) royal jelly to promote youth, but also intermittently becomes half human/half wasp (in reverse of poster image). Longer prints have footage added at front for tv airings.

AND THAT'S ALL! SFFot50s suggests you pretend it is now New Year's Eve, December 31, 1959. (Tomorrow, run down to your Studebaker dealer and get on the list for a 1960 Flying Hawk!).