Mutant males with black raincoats and women with beehives are kidnapping Earth’s best and brightest. Meanwhile, the devious Mr. Nurmi (Massimo Serato) is carrying out experiments with human organs. It looks like a job for Space Commander Mike Halstead (Tony Russel) and his sidekick Jack (Franco Nero).
Wild, Wild Planet takes us to the mod future where female scientists wear go-go boots, bubble cars have a top speed of twenty miles per hour, and real men don’t dance. Fighting mad scientists has never been so groovy.
In 1965, Antonio Margheriti directed four colorful sci-fi flicks at once, with overlapping casts and crews. The results, meant for the American market, were: Wild, Wild Planet (which has a “The” in front of it on the title card, but even Margheriti’s son drops it), The War of the Planets, War Between the Planets, and The Snow Devils. These Flash Gordon-type tales told of the adventures of two commanders on the Gamma I space station, Mike Halstead in the first two and Rod Jackson in the later two. Both were ’50s-style he-men who weren’t above abusing some women to save the universe (Halstead keeps trying to strangle anyone in his way). In the ’60s paradise which is the future, our heroes are the only ones who aren’t able to relax and enjoy the psychedelic world.
The first Gamma I film could never have been made in the U.S. There is a touch of insanity joining the normal Italian disinterest in a coherent plot. Considering what that plot is, and the giant holes that fill it, the less anyone dwells on it, the better. The same can be said with the characters. But, with a group of friends, and maybe a drink of two, Wild, Wild Planet is hysterical. There are strangers in raincoats attacking children, a man transformed into a midget, “laser” pistols that shoot flame about two feet, and a scientist who wants to be joined with a woman, vertically, as in sewn together. These are no Star Trek characters able to adapt to strange life-forms. When they find a four-armed man, a guy goes crazy at the sight, a woman becomes hysterical, and our hero just repeats angrily, “This is a Freak!” For entertainment, the people of the future stand in a large, red curtained room, and watch people dressed as butterflies skip about.
I don’t know how much of the peculiar dialog comes from the dubbing, but as it gives the film its special flavor, I’d hate to think it all sounds reasonable in Italian. Tony Russel was an American from Wisconsin and Franco Nero had no trouble with English, starring as Lancelot in the film version of Camelot few years later. But I don’t know if they dubbed their own voices (or if someone else dubbed Russel’s into Italian as the lips match the dialog). Whatever the case, the lines are as trippy as the sets. It’s nice to know that current obscenities will give way for the insult, “You helium head!” However, the finest snatch of dialog comes when our brave spacemen are fighting the artificial women, who happen to be wearing their negligees. Commander Halstead yells out the immortal words, “Watch out for those gadgets on their chests.” I think that’s good advice to any man wrestling with a half naked girl.
Antonio Margheriti also directed the ghost story Operazione paura. The Green Slime is a vaguely-connected 5th film in the series made in Japan, but without Margheriti.