In this, the second installment in Antonio Margheriti's 'Gamma One' tetralogy, Earth is threatened by incorporeal glowing green energy-beings ("Diaphanoids") who need humans to serve as hosts. Only heroic Commander Mike Halsead (Tony Russel) and his crew stand between mankind and assimilation. Typical of Italian science fiction films of the era, the future is a gaudy, gadget-filled, extrapolation of the worst excesses of the mod 1960s. Unfortunately, as this film was shot concurrently with the first in the series ('The Wild, Wild Planet') and used most of the same props and miniatures (and cast), there is nothing much new to be seen, and most of the encounters with the Diaphanoids are anticlimactic, as characters stare in disbelief, recoil in horror, etc, from what ends up being a cloud of smoke illuminated by a green spotlight. The acting and script are uniformly awful (the intrepid Commander is called a "space-idiot" by romantic interest Lt. Gomez (Jane Fate aka Lisa Gastoni)) and the story makes little sense, but like the others in the series (and Margheriti's marginally superior 'Assignment Outer Space' (1960)), the film has a certain delirious charm that makes it watchable despite its plentiful weaknesses (if you are in the right mood). Followed by 1966's 'War Between the Planets' which again recycles the miniatures and props, but features a new cast of characters.
Review of The War of the Planets
