A 'gem'

Hi w/b,

Don't worry about the "late" reply, I was away for a couple of days and out of touch anyway. Also no worries about the spelling!! (Though as a writer it pains me to say that!!!)

I'm really glad you liked The Man From Planet X. I agree entirely with your opinions. I think I said everything I think about this movie in my OP, so won't repeat, but this film has gone up to maybe my fourth or fifth favorite film of all -- not just among sf films. Your take on the alien is right...a far more interesting alien than almost any other one in any other movie.

Sorry you didn't like The Monster That Challenged the World more. I think it was better acted than you seem to feel. I actually think the sailor's scream was more realistic than if he had really let loose with some huge, blood-curdling yell. I always liked Tim Holt, although here he was certainly rather chubby and older than he had been in such films as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Magnificent Ambersons, My Darling Clementine and other major films he appeared in, aside from his many B westerns. But he was a nice guy and good actor. I thought the best performer was Hans Conried as the scientist on the case. And the scene where the monster grabs the gate keeper on the canal was really scary. (My mother once caught this film years ago and she jumped about three feet at that scene, and this isn't her kind of movie!) But we do agree on the effects -- they were pretty good -- and if you notice, you never see more than one monster at a time. The film was shot to give the impression of multiple monsters in some scenes, but they only had one, used very convincingly in each scene.

I was out near the Salton Sea four years ago and drove around it one afternoon (about a two-hour trip). The place was promoted as a resort area in the 50s but after the water got too dirty and smelly tourism evaporated faster than the sea itself, and today it's a pretty depressed area, with a couple of nearly abandoned small towns on its east coast and one or two seedy-looking residential areas on the west side. Most of the scenes that are supposed to take place on the Sea were in fact shot off the Pacific coast, 100 miles away...although the early shot of the guy parachuting out of his plane, with a body of water below, really is over the Salton Sea.

Bit of history: The movie inaccurately states that "Nature" has placed this odd body of water in the middle of the desert. Actually, it formed only in 1905 when a primitive viaduct carrying water from the Colorado River to far-away farms broke and flooded a below-sea-level portion of the desert then known as the Salton Sink. By the time it stopped the area had filled with water, fed by runoff. It was eventually stocked with fish, but most life in it is long dead. It's a pretty yucky place now. Even the old Naval base off the southern tip of the sea, which really did exist, was closed long ago. But the All-American Canal is real enough. The remnants of the Naval base (mostly just the concrete runways) are used by itinerants, people with no fixed address, who roam across the country throughout the year and congregate on "the slabs" (as they call the remains of the runways) during the winter months. They eke out a living selling stuff to one another, but most disperse as summer approaches, when the desert's temperatures soar to 120 degrees F or more. Many permanently rent a post office box in the town of Neilan on the east coast of the Sea, a town which is otherwise nearly deserted. But the government keeps the P.O. open, and for most of these people, it's their only means of receiving essential mail.

Hope you didn't mind the commentary!

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Wow, some one with a thing for birds. I love birds and have had them all they years of my life. Today I am the papa for an african grey though I must say my wife is the bird's mama. Even so, I love her as no other other; she is my baby and that's the truth. Another thing is, I too love "Ace in the Hole" and there's hardly a noir better, though my fave of all time is "Sunset Blvd". Such majesty!

What is the sound an imploding pimp makes?