Planet Outlaws is the edited Buck Rogers serial from 1938. It was edited again to feature length and titled Destination Saturn as it was syndicated to television,. It was edited again into in the late 70s and called Buck Rogers with the theatrical poster advertising, “Star Wars owes it all to Buck Rogers.”

Lieutenant Buck Rogers (Buster Crabbe, who was also Flash Gordon) and Buddy Wade (Jackie Moran) are lost somewhere in the North Pole in 1938. The Nirvano Gas they have in their ship causes them to go to sleep for five hundred years, waking up in 2440.

The future has been taken over by Killer Kane (Anthony Warde) and his army. The only people left to fight him are Dr. Huer (C. Montague Shaw), Wilma Deering (Constance Moore) and Air Marshal Kragg (William Gould). Buck and Buddy join up and head to Saturn to fight against the super crime bosses of the future.

This serial reuses a lot of things, such as the vehicles, a set and costumes from Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars, background music from The Bride of Frankenstein, the theme from Tim Tyler’s Luck and background shots from Just Imagine,

Forty years later, Buster Crabbe made a cameo appearance as Brigadier Gordon on the Buck Rogers TV series episode “Planet of the Slave Girls.” Gordon tells Buck (Gil Gerard), “I’ve been doing this since before you were born.” When Buck, at 533-years-old, asks “You think so?”

William Marshall was born in Chicago, Illinois. He started his entertainment career as the vocalist for Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians — Waring was “The Man that Taught America to Sing,” as well as the inventor of the first commercially available electric blender in the U.S., the Miracle Mixer, which Dr. Jonas Salk used to help mix up his polio vaccine; plus he had one of the largest collections of original comic strip art in the world — before moving to Hollywood to be an actor.

Marshall acted in twenty-five movies, including Knute Rockne All American, State Fair and Blackmail before becoming a director. He wrote and directed 1951’s Hello God, which starred Errol Flynn, as well as directing a movie Fynn wrote, Adventures of Captain Fabian. The Phantom Planet would be his last film.

In addition to all that singing, writing and directing, Marshall also found time to get married four times. He was with his first wife, French leading lady Michèle Morgan, for seven years and they had a son Mike* (who is in this movie), then was married to Devil in the Flesh star Micheline Presle, with whom he had a daughter, director Tonie Marshall. Then, he was married to Ginger Rogers for a decade* before he found a lasting marriage– 23 years before his death — to Corinne Aboyneau.

But hey, didn’t we have a movie to discuss?

The Phantom Planet takes place in 1980, a time when the United States Air Force’s Space Exploration Wing has bases on the Moon and is getting ready to head to Mars. The only problem is that spaceships and astronauts are disappearing. Rumors abound that it’s yet another case of phantom planets and space monsters, so Captain Frank Chapman and Lt. Ray Makonnen are called in.

Don’t get too attached to the latter, as he dies about two minutes later, before Chapman crashes on to the Phantom Planet and shrinks down to six inches in size. Now he has become a citizen of Rheton, where he will have the full rights of everyone else, but can never leave. He even has the choice between two women, the leader Sessom (Francis X. Bushman) entitled daughter Liara or the mute and kind Zetha (Dolores Faith, who disappeared from acting when she married the heir to Maxwell House, James Robert Neal, after a long courtship; she supposedly died in 1990, but there were reports of her still alive as late as 2006).

After some romantic misadventures and trial by combat with Herron, who is in love with Liara, our hero repels the evil forces of the Solarites (Richard Kiel is one of them) before leaving behind the planet and growing back to full size.

This is the very definition of made on the cheap, as all of the film’s sets, spacesuit helmets and special effects originally appeared in the CBS TV series Men into Space. Speaking of recycling, there are some rumors that Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea reused some of these sets.

Hey but someone loved this movie! It has a Dell comic book, after all.

*Marshall’s first two wives were friends and he’d begun dating the second (Micheline over Michèle) while still married. She’d already started an affair with her co-star Henri Vidal, so he hired detectives who caught her in bed with him and Marshall got full custody of his son Mike.

Strangely enough, Marshall hated France, despite three of his wives coming from there and would call his first wife Mike because he refused to learn how to pronounce her name.

Strangely enough, Marshall had really conservative values, so when his first wife moved from France to Hollywood, he refused to live in the house she built at 10050 Cielo Drive. He demanded that she sell the property, which years later would be purchased by Roman Polanski and, well, we all know how that turned out. In some level of irony, his daughter Toni was one of the people who signed the Free Roman Polanski petition following the director’s arrest in Switzerland in 2009.

**Actually, he produced a movie for her that bombed called Quick, Let’s Get Married and they were separated for most of the time they were officially betrothed.

Don’t have the box set? You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I feel bad that this ran just a few weeks ago, but hey, it’s in this box set.

Director W. Lee Wilder formed a film production company in the early 1950s called Planet Filmplays to quickly make low-budget science fiction films with screenplays co-written with his son Miles. Directing was in the Wilder blood, as his brother was the much better considered Billy.

Other Wilder science fiction movies of this era include Killers from Space and The Snow Creature.

Do you know who gets there first when a UFO crashes? The Federal Communications Commission. Yes, they’re there when The Phantom (Dick Sands), an invisible radioactive alien, is on the loose before it gets trapped inside Griffith Observatory. He tries to communicate through tapping but it’s too late. He can’t breathe our air and ends up falling off the top of the planetarium to his death, despite Barbara Randall (Noreen Nash) trying to save him.

I kind of love the way that the alien looks but then again, I like how Robot Monster looks.

Don’t have the box set? You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I know this ran during Chiller Theater month. Maybe this is why I need more people to write for the site. Maybe you should volunteer, right?

Dr. Frank Parrish (Paul Langton) is collecting botanical samples in the Himalayas when the wife of his guide Subra (Teru Shimada) is kidnapped. The guide takes over and forces the entire group to find his wife who he claims has been taken by a Yeti. Parrish and photographer Peter Wells (Leslie Denison) plan on working together to stop Subra but they soon learn that the creature is real.

By the end of the story, Parrish and Wells have succeeded in bringing the Yeti back to what we call civilization, only for it to escape into the sewers and get killed by one of the men hunting it. Way to go, humans.

The Yeti is played by Lock Martin, who also played a Martian in the original Invaders from Mars and Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Director W. Lee Wilder is the brother of Billy and also made The Omegans, Phantom from Space and Killers from Space. His son Myles wrote the story.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Before Ron Ormond went off and made his religious films, he was making some really out there movies. Actually, the religious films are just as bonkers, but Mesa of Lost Women is plenty strange as well.

Originally called Tarantula, Ormond came in, added some new footage and gave it the kind of name that would draw drive-in audiences. That’s after the original director, Herbert Tevos, claimed to have directed films in Germany starring Marlene Dietrich and Erich von Stroheim, including The Blue Angel. The truth is that Mesa is the only movie he ever worked on.

As we’ve watched movies where women — specifically outer space women — lorded over matriarchal societies this week, we’ve seen plenty of them working alongside giant spiders. Cat-Women of the Moon, Queen of Outer Space and Missile to the Moon*, you share something in common with this movie!

I love the beginning of this, as we watch a man get caressed by the monstrous hands of Tarantella, who kisses him to death as the narrator** intones, “Have you ever been kissed by a girl like this?”

What follows is not as good as that opening.

Grant Phillips (Robert Knapp) and Doreen Culbertson (Paula Hill) have been lost in the desert for days and nearly died from exposure and dehydration. As they recount their tale at the Amer-Exico Field Hospital, we discover the story of Leland Masterson, who has been invited by the spidery-named Dr. Aranya (Jackie Coogan!) to see the doctor’s human-sized tarantulas and women with the abilities and instincts of spiders, including Tarantella, who can regrow her body parts and could live forever. As for the males, well, they all turn out to be mutated dwarves. You can’t have it all, I guess.

Man, this movie is all over the place from here, with Leland getting drugged into insanity, Tarantella dancing in a club until she gets shot*** and then bringing herself back to life, George Barrows — the monster in Robot Monster — playing a nurse, sexual tension and, of course, a heroic and suicidal death for one of the leads, all wrapped up by the man and woman back in the hospital, telling their story that no one believes.

Hoyt Curtin wrote the music for this on guitar, bass and piano. It’s either going to make you happy or insane. Ed Wood must have been in the former camp, as he reused it for his movie Jail Bait.

This movie will hurt your brain, but hey — I’m all for a women-run society with gigantic spiders that believes in the power of dance numbers.

*To be fair, Missile is the exact same movie as Cat-Women. It was also filmed in the same location as Mesa, Red Rock Canyon Park.

**It’s Lyle Talbot, who also shows up in Amazon Women on the Moon, a movie surely influenced by this one.

***Before he shoots her, Leland quotes II Kings 9:33 by saying,”…So they threw her down, and some of her blood splattered on the wall and on the horses; and he trampled her underfoot…” as if he’s a proto-Jules Winnfield.

Don’t have the box set? You can watch this on Tubi or download it from the Internet Archive.

Clean-cut, square-jawed Rocky Jones of the Space Rangers was the lead character of a syndicated science fiction series that ran for two seasons from February to November of 1954. Shot in black and white, the show was about Rocky’s adventures as the space policeman for the United Worlds. Flying in his Orbit Jet XV-2 — and later the Silver Moon XV-3 — Rocky was a victim of budgets, as despite having a laser gun, he often defeated villains with his fists. Just as often, those villains were people in costumes speaking English instead of some alien tongue. Also, no matter where women came from — even lead villain Cleolanta, Suzerain of the planet Ophecius — they all love him in a precursor to the way James T. Kirk would be able to land any lady, even the green ones.

Rocky Jones was created by Roland D. Reed and starred Richard Crane as Rocky and former Our Gang member Scotty Beckett as Rocky’s co-pilot Winky. It was sponsored by Gordon Baking Company, which is why one of Rocky’s other ships was called the Silvercup Rocket after one of their bread brands. The show was greeted with a ton of cash-in merchandise, including watches, space dollars, badges, buttons, records, comic books and clothing.

Charactets changed in the last season, due to Professor Newton (Maurice Cass) dying of a heart attack — he was replaced by Professor Mayberry (Reginald Sheffield) — and Winky (Scotty Beckett) being arrested for possessing a weapon after being implicated in an armed robbery at the Cavalier Hotel in Hollywood. He left for Mexico, wrote some bad checks, got in a gun battle with the police and was jailed until he came back to the U.S. in 1954. He was replaced by a new comedy character, Biffen Cardoza (James Lydon). As for Cleodata, the new enemy became Juliandra, Suzerain of Herculon, played by Ann Robinson.

There are 39 episodes of the show with 36 being broken into 3-chapter arcs that were edited into TV movies. Menace from Deep Space are the “Bobby’s Comet” episodes that originally aired on April 6, 1954. The story is all about the Jovian moon Fornax, which is filled with energy crystals that Rocky and his friends — as well as his enemies — all want. Is it a Cold War analogy? Probably not. Yet the villains do dress like Arabic people and Cleodata refers to Rocky as an infidel, which is pretty strange.

There may be a kid sidekick, but Rocky’s love interest Vena Ray (Sally Mansfield) sure has a fancy car.

Ralston also sponsored a show called Space Patrol and working with Blue Bird shoes, gave away a spaceship. Here’s the ad copy courtesy of Solar Guard: “A hugh silver and scarlet rolling clubhouse, the Commander’s rocketship, the Terra IV. The ship is 35′ long, 10,000 lb in weight with a full size motorized flatbed truck to pull the Rocket. You can take the rolling clubhouse on trips, camp outs with your dad, sightseeing trips, or use it for you and your friends Space Patrol Headquarters. It has bunk beds lights, cooking equipment, and lockers for space gear. In addition to the Ralston Rocket there is $1,500 in cash to spend.”

There was also supposedly a rocket that traveled to promote Rocky Jones and for years, I’d hear rumors that people had found it. Imagine having your own space ship.

For a fictionalized retelling of the days of space kids TV, check out the Matt Fraction and Howard Chaykin comic book Satellite Sam.

There was a serial and movie of this released at the same time. They filmed several principal scenes with different dialog along with a new ending to make two totally different films. It’s also sort of a sequel to another serial, Darkest Africa.

This stars Clyde Beatty, who was one of the most famous circus performers and animal trainers in the world. He got into the business by hitching a ride on a train and joining Howe’s Great London and Van Amburgh’s Wild Animal Circus. His greatest shows had him in a cage alone with 43 lions at the same time. His wife Harriett Evans and his daughter Albnina were both animal trainers.

Directed by David Howard (Mystery Ranch) and Armand Schaefer (who went into producing when TV came around), who wrote the story with Wyndham Gittens and Barney A. Sarecky, this has Clyde looking for his lady Ruth (Cecilia Parker) in the jungle. He even crashes a zeppelin to get out there! Every animal is real except for the guy in the ape suit.

Michael Gold (Brandon Lee) tries to convince Dr. Braun (Ernest Borgnine) to defect to the U.S. before the KGB takes him and his stolen diamond to create a laser. He doesn’t go with him and is captured, which means that a rescue must happen. Gold and Braun’s daughter Alissa (Debi A. Monahan) must find Col. Kalishnakov (Graham Clarke) and get back the weapon, the diamond and the scientist.

Director BJ Davis is a stuntman who has been in so many movies — he did stunts in this — as well as the director of the video for Meat Loaf’s “I’d Lie for You (and That’s the Truth),” which is kind of cool. This has the worst accent ever coming out of Borgnine’s character to the point that I thought he was dubbed. He’s not.

This movie has the most sexist dialogue ever.

Alissa: “What do you want me to do? Get on my knees?”

Gold: “That would be nice.”

This would have been a forgotten movie if Lee hadn’t died. Then it was all over the place on VHS, as it was public domain in the U.S. It’s better than a lot of the other bargain bin action movies from then, but Lee would improve quite a bit by the time he starred in his last movie, The Crow.

I love this movie because I know that it upset people so much. It was titled King of Kong Island and there’s no King Kong, there’s barely an island and it’s so Italian that you know that I was yelling things in pure joy throughout the entire movie. Eva, la Venere selvaggia didn’t even know that in America people expected it to be something it couldn’t be.

Albert Muller (Marc Lawrence, the man who would make Pigs) is putting radios into the heads of gorillas to control them. These apes kidnap Diana (Ursula Davis, An Angel for Satan, Crypt of the Vampire) and Burt Dawson (Brad Harris) attempts to save her before being abducted by natives who are led by a white girl because that’s how movies work.

She’s Eva (Esmeralda Barros, God Is My Colt 45) and she doesn’t fall in love with Burt. No, she’s just kind of there. He’s into Diana. I’m also making this sound way more action-filled than it is because it’s packed with long moments of talking yet the beat up print and fuzzy noises that approximate a soundtrack on the Mill Creek box set that I viewed this on made me feel like I was lying in a sleeping bag with my feet under a warm old Zenith TV as a kid and I had no responsibility or anywhere to be.

Director Roberto Mauri also made He Was Called Holy Ghost.