OK, I saw this movie in the late 70’s when I was in elementary school, and this is all I can remember:
The movie was in black and white. It looked like it might have been made during the 50’s or 60’s, but I remember it being a bit bloody and disturbing rather than campy. It wasn’t very fun, and I was a little freaked out (In my defense, I was about eight at the time.)
OK, the crew members had those futuristic outfits on, and I remember one of them was killed somehow. He was lying on a bed in the hospital room in the spaceship, and he was covered in blood. There was a male astronaut and a female astronaut standing over him. A couple of scenes pass. The female astronaut is alone, and she goes into the room and notices that the table is empty. She opens up a closet, and the dead astronaut is standing there with his eyes wide open like a zombie, and she screams.
The only other scene I remember is on the planet the spaceship has travelled to/crash-landed on. It’s a rocky wasteland. Out of the ground comes this big old godzilla-like monster roaring away, and he starts to move. He’s about the same size as Godzilla, but I don’t think this was Godzilla, because I had seen Godzilla by this time, and the monster didn’t look anything like that. Plus, as I’ve said, the movie had the wrong feel. It was too disturbing.
I’m amazed at Dopers’ ability to ID movies, but if you can ID this one based on just these clues, I might start to be a bit worried.
Some of this reminds me a little of Angry Red Planet (1960). And maybe not. At the end there is a giant amoeboid creature coming out of the ground with a solitary revolving eye. But it’s best known for the Bat-Rat-Spider-Crab monster. And there is a scene where the woman looks toward a window, and sees something horrifying (maybe a Martian?), and screams.
Vaguely reminds me of It! The Terror From Beyond Space, except the monster in that was more or less human-sized …
I read the summary on your link, Steve, and this juuuuuuuust might be it. I’ll have to rent it and find out when I have a moment. The monster might have been human size. I saw a fragment of the movie 30 years ago, and that scene was the only one I saw of the monster, so I might be misremembering it.
Thanks everyone for your ideas!
That movie scared the crap out of me, as a kid. Freaked me right out.
Unfortunately, Angry Red Planet isn’t the one. I definitely remember the movie was black and white.
Sounds like you have black and white memories of the color movie Planet of the Vampires (1965).
Stupid question, but is there any chance that you watched a color movie on a black and white set?
This diooesn’t sound at all like Angry Red Planet or It! The Terror from Beyond Space. Neither of those has a zombie spaceman, and none of It takes place outside the ship.
My first thought was the same as Walloon’s – you’ve seen planet of Vampires and are misrememberi8ng it as b&w, or saw it on a b^w set.
But I don’t recall a live Godzilla-like monster in that (there is a skeleton of a large creature, though, and one features on the movie poster. But not in the film). Perhaps you’re conflating two movies.
I also think it’s Planet of the Vampires.
I just noticed that my post is more incoherent than is usual at the end. I meant that there were no scenes outside the ship (that is, on the surface of Mars) in It!. There are several outdoor scenes in Angry Red Planet. But it’s in color, too, although the Martuan scvenes are in a weird solarized and printed-in-red-only process to make them look weird.
I stopped by the local video store this afternoon, and rented a couple of movies, and the movie is indeed Planet of the Vampires. Walloon, cbawlmer, and CalMeacham, you all rock. Thank you all very much for solving a 30 year old puzzle.
As an aside, I’ve gotten to the part where they discover the spaceship from an ancient ciilization. The movie is actually pretty good, though it’s nowhere near as disturbing as I remember, although Mrs. Fresh is sitting beside me on the couch halfway through the last Harry Potter book, and she says that it’s getting on her nerves. 
Notice the elements of Planet of the Vampires that showed up fourteen years later in Alien.
Oh yeah, those alien skeletons in the abandoned spaceship brought back memories.
Overall, this was a surprisingly good movie. Most of it is good in a campy sort of way, but there were a few parts that were still downright creepy.
Watching Suspiria now.
