You've got better taste than you credit to yourself.
Forbidden Planet (I'm told, 'cause I'm not well read on great lit) is actually Shakespeare's
The Tempest set on Mars. Nothing silly or quirky about that!
I share your guilty pleasure with old sci fi movies from the '50s. A few are still good cinema, like (the original versions of)
The Thing,
The Day the Earth Stood Still, and
Invasion of the Body Snatchers. All have been remade, but panned.
Most though were cheaply made drive-in fare that got recycled on late-night weekend local TV a decade later, and again on Mystery Science Theater. But I still enjoy the innocence of
The Blob, with Steve McQueen and Miss Crump as
not-teenage delinquents. That was actually filmed on a shoestring budget, using equipment and actors from a small Christian film company near Gettysburg, PA. My wife used to eat at the diner featured in the climactic scene, before it burned down in Downingtown, PA.
It's fascinating to watch how the characters in
The Thing have their own jobs and responsibilities within competing hierarchies, and how they interact, jostle, and eventually cooperate. The way the Captain works with his sergeant presents the military at its best. Likewise, it might be a revelation to kids today to see journalism before it could be done on a smartphone pulling quotes from Twitter, commissioned polls, and illegal leaks to write a real story.
The Thing shows science, the military, and the press each trying to act in accord with the ethics of their specialty, in a compact, constantly changing situation, cut off from guidance from outside. The contrast to our current norms is stark.
A sci fi from late-60s British television that current events may push into a revival is the surrealistic series
The Prisoner, created by and starring Patrick McGoohan, then of
Danger Man fame (shown in America as
Secret Agent Man). I think the first episode is available free online, and A&E packaged the series as a 10-volume set. I gradually assembled my set from the local McKay's Used Books.
Village of the Damned is an overlooked British gem of sci fi storytelling, starring the always-smooth George Sanders. (A post-production decision to add a gimmicky special effect sadly keeps it from being a classic today), and there's a strange, low-budget but fascinating movie called
Red Planet Mars that some here might find interesting. Starring a pre-
Mission Impossible Peter Graves, the script was evidently written as Christian sci fi. The plot has several neat twists, and the story has its moments despite some uneven acting and forced edits. But more intriguing than actually good.
And is there anything more unintentionally funny than
Plan 9 from Outer Space, which reigned for nearly 30 years as the worst movie ever made?
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My apologies to the regulars for being such a film nerd today. I know why it happened, and I'll just say I appreciate everyone's tolerance.
