The Cosmic Man (1959)

Fresh and Exciting

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Blistering performances.

*Spoiler/plot- The Cosmic Man. 1959. An alien from another planet arrives on Earth in a glowing sphere. Mankind's experts differ in their response to this event. Military is fear driven expect the worst and scientists are benevolently curious. In the end, the alien is a messenger to earthlings.*Special Stars- John Carradine, Bruce Bennett, Angela Greene, Scotty Morrow, Lynn Osborne.*Theme- This dilemma is explored; Science for knowledge or science for power.*Trivia/location/goofs- B & W. Regular non-scientific grip lighting equip is placed around the alien sphere to measure it's sound properties. Bronson Caves in Gower Canyon is where the sphere lands. Goof: obvious microphone boom shadow movement on ground as AF Sargent enters mountain lodge looking for the maker of the loud footsteps.*Emotion- A wonderful 'slice of' 1950's Cold War psychology involving all controlling races from a more developed stars.*Based On- 1950's views on space and spaceflight. Plot is somewhat accounted for during the Cold War scare.

An alien (a fine performance by John Carradine) arrives on earth in a spherical spaceship. Is he here to help mankind or destroy us? Ramrod Colonel Matthews (nicely played to the stern hilt by Paul Langton) assumes the worst while kindly scientist Dr. Karl Sorenson (a sound and likable portrayal by Bruce Bennett) tries to protect the cosmic man.Director Herbert S. Greene relates the absorbing story at a steady pace, does a sturdy job of crafting an intriguing mysterious atmosphere, and maintains an appropriately earnest tone throughout. Arthur C. Pierce's intelligent script brings up a few interesting philosophical issues and provides a pointed critique of gung-ho paranoid military types. The sound acting from the capable cast rates as another major plus, with especially praiseworthy contributions from Angela Greene as cheery innkeeper Kathy Grant, Scotty Morrow as Kathy's sweet, yet sickly son Ken, and Herbert Lytton as the hard-nosed General Knowland. Moreover, the titular character makes neat use of Carradine's trademark deep booming voice. Both John F. Warren's sharp black and white cinematography and the spare moody score by Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter are up to par. The special effects are pretty hokey by today's standards (for example, the cosmic man's spaceship looks like a giant golf ball!), but still do the trick just the same. A worthwhile science fiction outing.

Even though this film is essentially a reworking of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (hence, lacking some originality), it still is one of the better sci-fi films of the 1950s and is well worth watching. It's also far better than the paltry 4.0 rating would indicate.The film is another struggle within the human race over whether to openly embrace an alien or blow the snot out of him out of fear. On one hand, you have Dr. Sorenson (Bruce Bennett) who has a wait and see attitude--we can't act with hostility towards the alien until we know it means us harm. On the other, you have the military guys who want to exploit the space ship for military reasons and kill the alien because...well, just because! All this come to be after an odd floating sphere arrives in a rural place in the mountains. Oddly, this space craft defies gravity and just hovers--impervious to being moved in any way. They aren't sure exactly what sort of craft it is, but they are fairly sure it's unmanned because it's pretty small. Of course, since the film is called "The Cosmic Man", we know that someone (John Carradine) is inside. Interestingly, he doesn't even make an appearance until late in the film--long after the military start attacking the sphere with blowtorches and heavy equipment (to no avail).What's particularly interesting about this film is that there are no clear answers. Carradine is just visiting the planet to see what's here and when he's met with such stupidity, he decides to leave. After all, why would aliens want to deal with such a group of morons?! Well written and intelligent, this is no bug-eyed monster sort of sci-fi film. Good acting and a decent production all around.By the way, Bruce Bennett soon went on to play a character 100% different in one of his next films, "The Fiend of Dope Island"--a terrible film due to the fact that Bennett plays one of the most berserk characters in movie history! Also, if you get a chance, read Bennett's IMDb biography--it's really, really interesting and he only recently died at age 100.

You can say a lot about John Carradine but dull he isn't except, of course, in THE COSMIC MAN. He has very little screen time and when he does appear it's behind the darkest pair of goggles this side of The Invisible Man. His affected, halting "alien speak" hampers him even further so he's not a exactly ball of fun and neither is the movie. I know it's a personal quirk but even as a kid I never liked genre films with child actors as major characters and when they play for sympathy (the boy has polio) it gets even more cloying.On the plus side, there are atmospheric touches in a couple of scenes with Carradine printed "in negative." This, however, is more than balanced by scads of talking head scenes, some of which includes the leading lady wavering between her two oldish, low-charisma suitors Bruce Bennett and Paul Langton. It's a very slow go.I recall back in the seventies when THE COSMIC MAN seemed to be a lost film, a friend of mine, a die-hard science fiction fan, was determined to track down a copy. He finally got his opportunity when the film suddenly became available on home video. Even he gave it a big Thumbs Down.