The alien, plot and characters in this W. Lee Wilder travesty are not just transparent, not just invisible, in truth, they practically do not exist. W. Lee Wilder, brother of the talented William Wilder, continued his descent into low-budget sci fi cinema oblivion with 1953' Phantom from Space. Casting actors with names like Nora Nash and Sandy Sanders, our fearless director solved the age old problem of having no budget by creating a film which really required no budget - he left out the action, any need for special effects, and, for the most part - the plot.
The "Phantom" is an alien who has crash landed on earth. Capable of intergalactic travel, but can't avoid crashing on an inhabited planet among thousands of uninhabited ones? OK...) He wears an unremarkable space suit and seems on a quest for something. By the time "the authorities" - various military personnel, a cliché German scientist, and some newspaper reporters - figure out what is going on, "the phantom" comes to them, apparently for the sole purpose of taking off his clothes to reveal that he is, in fact, invisible. The story reveals how all this is possible and what it means, but it is not worth typing out. It is a pseudoscientific muddle that would only convince the most undereducated. Might have been improved by consultation with an actual scientist!
The story involves no real action and is driven entirely by the lackluster script (most of the characters being somewhat interchangeable). There is a tremendous amount of dryly delivered flat dialog and very little to see. Most of the action takes place off-camera and is explained by seemingly disinterested observers. The end of the film is the only part which had any real potential and, had it been attached to a different film, might have been really dramatic. Nevertheless, it is worth sticking around for if you've managed to survive the rest of the film - or you could just fast-forward.
The "Phantom" is an alien who has crash landed on earth. Capable of intergalactic travel, but can't avoid crashing on an inhabited planet among thousands of uninhabited ones? OK...) He wears an unremarkable space suit and seems on a quest for something. By the time "the authorities" - various military personnel, a cliché German scientist, and some newspaper reporters - figure out what is going on, "the phantom" comes to them, apparently for the sole purpose of taking off his clothes to reveal that he is, in fact, invisible. The story reveals how all this is possible and what it means, but it is not worth typing out. It is a pseudoscientific muddle that would only convince the most undereducated. Might have been improved by consultation with an actual scientist!
The story involves no real action and is driven entirely by the lackluster script (most of the characters being somewhat interchangeable). There is a tremendous amount of dryly delivered flat dialog and very little to see. Most of the action takes place off-camera and is explained by seemingly disinterested observers. The end of the film is the only part which had any real potential and, had it been attached to a different film, might have been really dramatic. Nevertheless, it is worth sticking around for if you've managed to survive the rest of the film - or you could just fast-forward.