“I don’t understand you, Les — you’ve never been so tense about a planetoid before.”
Synopsis:
When a glowing object from a UFO is shot down from the desert sky, its energy inhabits the body of a trucker (Kenneth Alton) who passes it along to an unsuspecting scientist (John Emery) at a research lab. Emery’s colleagues — including Dr. Les Gaskill (Jeff Morrow) and his photographer fiancee (Barbara Lawrence) — follow the flying saucer to Mexico, where the grounded alien-machine (nicknamed “Kronos”) attempts to take over power plants with secret assistance from possessed Dr. Eliot (Emery). Will Kronos succeed in harvesting all the earth’s energy and bringing it back to its dying planet?
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Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:
- Aliens
- Possession
- Science Fiction
- Scientists
- World Domination
Review:
It’s hard to know what to make of the blocky mechanical villain of this pulpy sci-fi flick, described by DVD Savant as “two upright cubes topped by a dome” which “stands on piston-pile driver legs”.
While the idea of aliens attempting to harvest the Earth’s energy resources isn’t too far-fetched — and the incorporation of a possessed scientist unknowingly helping them out is reasonably intriguing — the film itself is rather dull. The dialogue is either trite:
“It can’t fail…”
“It won’t — I know it won’t!”
or laughably verbose:
“Energy into matter — anthropic conversion!”
Meanwhile, the love affair between hunky Morrow and bodacious Lawrence is standard B-movie hokum. The cinematography and direction are fine, though.
Redeeming Qualities and Moments:
- Atmospheric cinematography (by Karl Struss) and occasionally creative direction (by Kurt Neumann)
Must See?
No, but hardcore classic sci-fi buffs will want to check it out.
Links:
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One thought on “Kronos (1957)”
First viewing. I actually got a kick out of this (and I’m not a raging sci-fi fan in general). It’s not must-see but it’s certainly a lot better than a number of other similar films of the period – so genre fans will have interest. As I posted in ‘Revival House of Camp & Cult’ on facebook:
“How can we ever *stop* it?!”
‘Kronos’: For sci-fi fans who know what to expect of the 1950s, this is (by turns) smart, silly and fun. An alien force (a “distant intelligence”) makes a mad dash to Earth in vampire fashion to absorb energy. You see, wherever the fuck it came from, they’ve run out of the stuff. Any kind of real energy will do, but it seems to like things thermonuclear. There’s mayhem galore as the force takes the form of a cubic monstrosity (with ‘legs’). Jeff Morrow stars, looking hunkier than he did in his own alien get-up as Exeter in ‘This Island Earth’. Directed by Kurt Neumann, who would follow this up by directing Vincent Price in ‘The Fly’.