X is for the Man from Planet X

Yes, I went to all the sites which I typed out which said "words starting with X". I learned a lot, but before I could apply this for your edification, I decided to check just one more thing on my computer, which was on the floor next to our bed. I leaned over and grabbed it, too lazy to get up and get out of bed. I fell, valiantly saving it, on my ear and on my head and got wedged upside down on the side of the bed. "OW! I said! Somebody help me!!!"  Fortunately, from under the bed, on the opposite side I saw two large sets of feet shuffling into the room. It was my husband and our 20 year old son--they climbed onto the bed and pulled me up gently. It was pretty traumatic but they calmed me down and gave me Tylenol and part of a bun with brown sugar my son had just made for himself.

And as I slept I dreamed...

not about the movie above, see review from amazon, below, but about my favorite horror movie when I was a kid.

Here is the review first for The Man from Planet X, as X is the A to Z blogging challenge letter today

"Amazon.com

Daring reporter John Lawrence (Robert Clarke) narrates this gripping tale of an alien's attempt to take over a tiny village in Scotland. As the story opens, Lawrence is visiting his old friend, Professor Elliot, who's made the startling discovery of a new planet that is approaching Earth at breakneck speed. Soon Elliot's lovely daughter, Enid, has spotted a mysterious craft in the middle of the moor. Lawrence and Elliot decide to investigate, inexplicably allowing the clearly evil Dr. Mears to assist. Lost the plot? Not to worry! The Man from Planet X cheerfully helps slower viewers by offering expository dialogue as frequently as humanly possible. "Look!" says Elliot, "It seems as if he's trying to turn that knob to the right, but doesn't have the strength or coordination," as the alien tries to turn the knob to the right, but doesn't have the strength or coordination. All seems lost as the alien begins using telepathy to control the local villagers. Luckily for the Earth, the alien's superior mind-control powers are not matched with superior common sense--he never bothers to give his slaves such crucial commands as "Don't tell the enemy my entire plan!" or "Let me know if any outsiders show up!" or "By the way, don't follow the commands of anybody but me!" A guaranteed hoot of an evening. --Ali Davis "

This sounds like something I must have seen. I spent my weekends when I was very young watching Million Dollar Movie (coincidentally, so did Jim, my husband, far away in another state and two years younger!). My favorite horror movie , which was remade into an inferior version starring Kurt Russell (who was GREAT as Snake Plisken in Escape from New York)  was the Thing 

here is The Thing:

and here is the review for The Thing:

---

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video  <--note from jean--I had good taste at age 6!

With its modest special effects, lean plot, and small cast of lesser stars, this 1951 thriller remains a sturdy blueprint for fusing horror and science fiction. The formula has been employed countless times since, fleshed out with more extensive and elaborate production values, and manned by higher profiled marquee names, but the results have yet to improve on The Thing from Another World, Howard Hawks's lone foray into sci-fi. The story begins as military airmen are dispatched to a remote Arctic research station where scientists have detected the crash of a spacecraft. An effort to retrieve the saucer-shaped vehicle fails, but the team returns to the station with the frozen body of its sole occupant. When the extraterrestrial pilot is accidentally thawed, the crew, headed by a tough-talking pilot (Kenneth Tobey), grapples with a massive, chlorophyll-based humanoid (James Arness) thirsty for blood and in no mood for galactic diplomacy.
Hawks takes only a production credit for this low-budget exercise, but his filmmaking style transcends Christian Nyby's nominal direction: rapid-fire, overlapping dialogue, an ensemble of comrades whose professionalism is tempered by wisecracks, and unsentimental female characters (embodied by feisty romantic interest Margaret Sheridan) recall Hawks's signature works, while propelling the plot over any potential gaps in credibility. It's hardly surprising, then, that The Thing from Another World remains among the most influential science fiction movies ever shot, or that it remains exciting entertainment a half century later. --Sam Sutherland

I could watch this great film--note it was directed by Howard Hawks!-- over and over. In the Northeast, Million Dollar Movie ran the same movie about two times a day for a week and then brought it back around a month later. TV was in its infancy and  as Jim says (borrowing from Bob and Ray), "it was very nice of Million Dollar Movie to lend 'Gone with the Wind' their theme song". Ha, ha.

Anyway, the only other thing I would like to say is that if you choose to watch this fantastic movie, (spoiler alert! spoiler alert!...maybe...or maybe I just made this part up) they can't kill the Thing until they figure out it is a giant frozen vegetable  and needs to be torched in order to succumb. And this, my friends, is why I was reluctant to eat my lima beans and corn from the highly respected Birdseye frozen vegetable line when our mother made this as an accompaniment to our hamburgers for dinner. Or possibly I made this part in the movie up. I was only six. Giant vegetables were about as scarey a thing as I could imagine.

Who knows?  Only I know... well, and this site, here:

Chlorophyll - Nutrition - Articles - Natural Health Australia

natural-health.net.au

The way to tell if a vegetable has enough chlorophyll content is by looking at its leaves. Algae is the highest know source of chlorophyll. ...

bwahah

too bad I just fell on my head because apparently I knew what Chlorophyll was at 6 and I sure have lost a big pile of IQ points since then and since last night, a few more

--jean

going to rent the Man from Planet X now

The A to Z  Blogging Challenge is a creation of the wonderful
Arlee Bird's Ambitious April challenge. Her blog can be found here: Tossing It Out