mr-thousand Although I grew up watching old sci-fi and horror films on TV in the 60's, this is one I don't remember seeing. Not until I got it in a Mill Creek collection of 100 Sci- Fi Classics. What appealed to me immediately was that it was reminiscent of my many favorites from the 50's; pure nostalgia.The story of an alien from another planet, crash landing off the coast of L.A. and simply trying to escape capture to survive, killing as necessary, is serviceable yet certainly could have been portrayed more compellingly. The acting is typical 'B' melodrama, the effects are fairly good for the era, and the story is just OK. Staging much of it as a police procedural, which was very popular at the time, is an effective budget device. I don't think it's a stretch to suppose that the budget and shooting schedule were insufficient to do much more with the film. That and it's seventy-two minute run time don't allow for additional story details, action sequences, nor engaging characterization. Not that Billy Wilder's little brother, W. Lee Wilder had what it took to make more out of such meager resources, anyway.Be that as it may, Wilder did a decent job, as he did with several other lesser 'B' classics including, "Killers From Space," "The Man Without a Body," and "Once a Thief," which just might be his masterpiece.Nonetheless, this modest piece of nostalgia has an effective soundtrack featuring theremin and an eerie choir. I usually half-watch it when I'm busy doing something else. Far from great, but I still like it.

midge56 This sci-fi wasn't bad & could have been much better without the unrestrained barking dog & blatant stupidity of the characters. When told to keep the dog away from the invisible spaceman... the characters blunder into the room allowing the dog to freely enter & run wild creating all kinds of mayhem & irritating noise.These same characters... supposedly respectable experts, allow a newspaper reporter to wander into sensitive situations & PO the spaceman with a flash camera while they are trying to communicate, resulting in disastrous results.Then they tell the creature they mean no harm but chase it with guns, cameras & a dog running wild. They make feeble little effort to communicate or help it to breathe or find out why it is here.Then we have the tobacco company funding where the actors all offer & light up cigarettes in every scene. The worst being at the end where they all light up for a smoke as they stand staring at the vaporizing body with an "Oh, well" attitude.The tobacco companies monetary controls over movies between the 40's and 60's were the cause of deaths for so many fine actors. Yul Brynner, John Wayne, Lee Remick, Rod Serling, Michael Landon, Susan Hayward, Patrick Swayze... just to name a few. Filming near the radioactive Nevada test site didn't help. The smoking was a distressing fact of the movie business requiring the celebrities to hawk their tobacco products to get funding for their films.Who really cares if the phantom wore boxers or not. They couldn't have him running naked or exposing his package in tights on the highly censored 50's films. It was quite daring they managed to get away with a naked death shot as it was.I liked this movie in general but it saddens me to see the exaggerated smoking in excess of other films at the time. I also don't care for scenes with utter stupidity of the characters going our of their way to not listen & do just the opposite of what they are told... in any film. This is the fault of the screenwriter. They seem to be oblivious that character stupidity is a gross irritant & point of disgust for the audience. Stupidity ruins movies.If not for the absurd smoke fest, the unrestrained barking dog & the character displays of stupidity I could have really enjoyed this movie.I still recommend it with those notable exceptions.

JohnHowardReid I must admit that the colorized version released on the excellent Legend Films DVD is far more watchable than the original black-and- white theatrical release prints, but all the same Phantom from Space is still an inferior entry in the visitors-from-outer-space cycle. Too much time is filled in by the transparent device of allowing the characters to sit around – mostly in the same small, cheesy office set – and mull over possible explanations for the "mysterious" events. And when the long-awaited action climax does occur, it too is rather tame. Aside from Noreen Nash (what a pity she's forced to wear the same none-too-sexy wardrobe from first to last!), the major players are not a particularly interesting lot. It's left to familiar faces like Rudolph Anders (who has a major role with lots of close-ups, despite his extra-low position in the credits) and James Seay (who made well over 250 movie and TV appearances) to give the acting a bit of class and – shall-I-say-it? – confidence. The direction by W. Lee Wilder (Billy Wilder's somewhat less- talented brother) is neither particularly lamentable nor particularly stirring, but given the movie's obviously tight budget and short shooting time, reasonably competent.

siderite This is the story of an invisible alien that can talk only via ultrasound. It has trouble breathing on our world and everybody who gets a whiff of him tries to attack it. A merry bunch of scientists, men of action and the ubiquitous woman with a good heart are trying to communicate with it and fail miserably. The dog can see and hear him, but nobody bothered to understand dog, either.The acting is decent, the story interesting. The only problem is that it is a black and white movie from 1953, with people acting like they're on speed. All in all not a bad movie and surely at least average for its time and genre.