I love This Island Earth. It's a colorful, pulpy romp, like the cover of a 40 or 50s sci-fi magazine come to life. Flying saucers, bug eyed monsters, sweet scenes of an alien planet (Metaluna) being bombarded by meteors until it turns into a radioactive sun...not to mention the professor from Gilligan's Island (Russell Johnson) being vaporized and Faith Domergue (It Came from Beneath the Sea, Cult of the Cobra) looking hot as ever. Oh, and Jeff Morrow (The Creature Walks Among Us, The Giant Claw, Kronos) is a slightly bland but serviceable hero.
So, the movie is cool...but that poster is AWESOME!!! Yikes...looks like I had a little too much caffeine. Let me dial my enthusiasm back a bit. The poster is better than puppies and Christmas combined. There, that's a bit more understated, right?.
The poster really pops with action and color. All the highlights of the movie are there. The Metaluna flying saucer and the arrowhead attack ships of their enemies, the Zagons. The meteor blasted surface of Metaluna, as well as a glimpse of the subterranean cities that hold what's left of the population. We even get a tiny Faith Domerque being menaced by a Metaluna mutant...who appears to be firing lasers out of his eyes. And the tag line "Two mortals trapped in outer space...challenging the unearthly furies of an outlaw planet gone mad!" is great. It's not really accurate - Metaluna isn't an "outlaw" planet and even if they were, I'm not sure how planet can go "mad" - but still lets you know that our heroes are going to be thrown into the deep end of the intergalactic pool.
There are a few oddities. We have Big Faith (left) and Small Faith (right), as well as Big Jeff (left) and Small Jeff (in one of the tubes in the lower right hand corner). I'm not sure if having Faith and Jeff in 50s casual looking bored and shocked (respectively) adds much, although Faith's sweater dress stretching bosom doesn't hurt. The book icon in the lower left corner is an interesting feature. No mention is made of the author, Raymond F. Jones. So, we know it's based on a novel; but would that really entice anyone into seeing the film? But these are minor quibbles about an otherwise stunning work of cinematic art, a bright and kinetic come-on for the film. Unlike some of its contemporaries, where the poster promised more than was on-screen (I'm looking at you Invasion of the Saucer-Men) the film delivers. The poster promises high adventure and, after a slow buildup in the first act, the movie takes off and becomes exactly that.
This is a great image for a great movie.
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