By the way, it’s not just bad movies that are forgotten. Here are some good science fiction films that are getting left behind:
The Lost Missile – written by Jerome Bixby (who rewrote Fantastic Voyage, wrote three episodes of Star Trek: TOS, the story “It’s a Good Life!” and the movie It! The Terror from Beyond Space, from which Alien was solen). A weapon of war missile gets launched by un-named Bad Guys (pretty obviously Russia) and wreaks havoc, burning up things it passes over – and it threatens to pass over everything on Earth. They have to bring it down
The Creeping Unknown (The Quatermass Xperiment) – this one was shown regularly on Chiller Theater, too, but it’s a good one.
Enemy from Space (Quatermass 2) – well worth watching. This doesn’t seem to be very well known.
I hope that Quatermass and the Pit (Five Million Years to Earth) is not obscure - it’s one of the best science fiction films.
Four Sided Triangle – A scientist hopes that the Duplicating Machine he makes will solve the problem of the love triangle he’s in. But pope aren’t mathematical entities.
The Twonky – based on a story by Lewis Padgett (husband and wife team Henry Kuttner and Catherine L. Moore). There have been three movies based on “Padgett’s” works, and in each case they changed the daek tone and gave it a happy ending.
Panic in Year Zero - Ray Milland and his family try to survive an atomic attack on Los Angeles.
I will limit myself to horror and monster films of the fifties that were cheap and bad by most objective standards, but which are not necessarily without entertainment value.
The Mole People (1956)
The Brain from Planet Arous (1957)
Fiend without a Face (1958)
The Hideous Sun Demon (1958)
The Angry Red Planet (1959)
Monster of Piedras Blancas (1959)
Every film mentioned in the OP is streaming on YT and/or IA.
It was probably a made for tv movie: an ocean liner sinks, and manages to land right side up with minimal damage. The people on board create their own little civilization and live happily under the sea. It was as dumb as it sounds. Dunno the name.
I must have been lucky with my local video stores. I was able to catch up with most of the above and other favorites in the 1980s on VHS.
The one I could never find was Voyage into Space, a Japanese cheapo featuring Johnny Sokko and his giant flying robot. This movie played five nights straight on our local channel(CH5 in LA) and no one seemed to know about it. It wasn’t until the Internet that I discovered the movie was a Frankenstein constructed from several episodes of a Japanese TV show called “Giant Robo” (not to be confused with the anime Gigantor). As soon as EBay was a thing, I bought a bootleg DVD and was, of course, sorely disappointed. You just have to be ten years old to enjoy some things.
Monster of Piedras Blancas was another regular on Chiller Theater. A sort of low-rent Creature from the Black Lagoon. IIRC, they re-used the hands from The Mole People for this monster.
I knew about most of these films from the magazine famous Monsters of Filmland and other such sources. I was an older kid before I finally saw The Mole People and an adult before I finally saw Fiend without a Face (which has been on Svengoolie within the past year).
Angry Red Planet was a particularly interesting film. I actually saw it in a movie theater, and it’s avcailable on DVD. It was made by Moe Howard’s son-in-law Norman Maurer, who knew Moe because he was one of the artists drawing The Three Stooges comics. He was responsible for most of the movies they made after they left Columbia and found new fame from their stuff being syndicated. Maurer experimented with different filming styles, which is how he came up with the “filming real life as cartoon” scenes in Three Stooges in Orbit (that was actually his process being used), and the “Cinemagic” process used for all the Mars scenes in Angry Red Planet. This seems to have been a combination of solarization plus use of an orange filter. It definitely added something to the film – you get a real sense of “otherness” from the Mars scenes. The movie also features a REAL scientific solution to a problem posed near the end. And the female doctor comes up with it. Pretty good for 1959.
“The much-touted Cinemagic process which was used for the scenes set on Mars was actually the result of a film-developing mistake. The budget was slashed mid-production so the producers considered turning the film into black and white to keep costs down. However, one reel became accidentally double-exposed which produced a shimmering, vaguely psychedelic glare that director Ib Melchior latched onto, thinking it would suit his purposes for the Mars scenes. (It also helped to camouflage the cheap Martian monsters and scenery.)”
“The “Cinemagic” process, used for all scenes on the surface of Mars, was the result of an attempt by producer Norman Maurer to turn live-action footage directly into hand-drawn animation - or to simulate that. This would enable hand-drawn backgrounds to look as real (or as unreal) as the live action footage.”
The production does have a unique look and monsters. However, Gerald Moor is (as usual) intolerable and a major taint on the film.
I’ve got one you should already know, 1970’s Equinox.
Featuring a cameo from Fritz Leiber, a voice over from Forrest J. Ackerman, (for WKRP fans) the first film appearance of Frank Bonner, and some Ray Harryhausen inspired special effects not done by Jim Danforth despite his participation in the film.
ETA Since Mars has been mentioned I’ll add Robinson Crusoe on Mars.
CBS in Dallas didn’t have a hosted creature feature, but it did recurringly save a Saturday afternoon slot for those movies. Tarantula of course, everyone saw that, but one that also ran a lot was Gargoyles, which featured Cornel Wilde skidding frenetically down the downslope of his career, and Scott Glenn going in the opposite direction. I must’ve watched that a couple dozen times.
