# Forgotten movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [January 2, 2024, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-movies/995476 "2024-01-02T02:08:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 406
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2024, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-movies/995476/406 "2024-01-19T14:13:44Z")
Jerome Bixby was a science fiction writer who also wrote several notable SF screenplays. He co-wrote the screenplay for _Fantastic Voyage_ and wrote three episodes of the original _Star Trek_ (Including “Mirror, Mirror”, the one with the Evil Mirror Universe, where Spock has a beard). The Twilight Zone episode _It’s a GOOD Life_ (the one with Billy Mumy as the omnipotent boy who sends those he doesn’t like “into the cornfield”) wasn’t written by him, but it’s based on his short story. And, of course, he wrote _It! The Terror from Beyond Space_, which _Alien_ stole its plot from. But he also wrote some other screenplays that have been overlooked. I can understand it with _The Curse of the Faceless Man_, which is basically a mummy story, but with one of those plaster of paris figures from Pompeii . But his third 1950s work appears to have been almost completely forgotten. **The Lost Missile** (1958) . It’s not even listed among Bixby’s films on his Wikipedia page. It’s about an atomic-powered rocket used as a weapon, launched by an un-named power (pretty obviously the Soviet Union), which an American missile intended to destroy it merely moves it off course. The still-traveling missile is in a very low earth orbit and is wreaking havoc on everything it passes over. Attempts to destroy the missile repeatedly fail, and it’s on its way towards New York City when a scientist tries a newly-developed weapon against it. Interesting, totally neglected flick. I’ve only seen it once, on TV. The DVD is listed at Amazon and WalMart, but always as “out of stock”. You can find it in some obscure places, if you dig deep enough. But I haven’t seen it in ages. Bixby also wrote _The Man from Earth_ (2007), an effects-less SF story about a man who has lived practically forever. It resembles his Star Trek screenplay “Requiem for Methuselah” in many ways. I’ve only ever seen it as a DVD. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-movies/995476)._