As a child I spent the summers with my grandparents in northern New Jersey. In the summer of 1959 the parents of a friend of mine were taking him to see a movie at a drive-in and I was invited,which movie didn't matter to me, just a chance to see a movie was great. The movie was Space Master X-7 and as child of 11 it scared the heck out of me (my mental film vault still has a has a clip of the scientist being absorbed by the fungus). That was the 1950's, cold war, Castro and all, traveling to outerspace was still a dream. A child of 11 today would find the movie laughable and the effects lame, but in the dark of a summer night in 1959 the movie had its effect.
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philipa11 May 2001
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I can't give this film more than five stars, because it's just a standard, low-budget 50s horror flick featuring the usual gimmicks:
1. Phony narrator claiming this is a "true story" 2. Manmade spacecraft returning to earth with deadly virus/creature 3. Desperate attempt to control spreading of virus 4. Scientist who dies attempting #3
And really, it's not outstanding in its genre, because it has a clunky ending and it tends to veer from true SF to being a chase picture. Most of the middle of the picture has nothing to do with the evil spores from outer space.
BUT...where have you ever seen Paul Frees on camera before? I didn't see his name in the credits, but when Prof. Pommer started talking, I shouted, "That's Paul Frees!" Here's a man with hundreds of credits (and many uncredited roles) but they've almost always been for his voice. Even in this pic, he also "appears" as the announcer voice in the bus station. Space Master X-7 gives him a good reel or more almost by himself, as a scientist attempting to figure out what the virus is. He's not matinée idol material, but the film shows that he could act with more than his lungs.
AND...a couple of scenes with Moe Howard, down on his luck between the demise of Columbia's short film division, and the amazing comeback of the Stooges in the early 60s. When I saw the names Bernds and Maurer in the credits, I almost wondered if the film was going to be a parody, since they're the pair that did most of the Stooges' 60s features. Maurer kindly gave his father-in-law Moe a decent part as a cabby who helps police find the missing (spore-infected) woman.
It was fun to find this film on TV, since it had disappeared for decades. For fans of SF schlock, it's a must. But definitely for fans of Moe and Paul (Boris Badenov) Frees! -
aiiee-111 July 2009I just finished watching this on 'Fox Movie Channel'. I have no idea when it might be on again, but it is now in rotation! And as everyone else said, it was the most terrifying movie when I saw it with 'The Fly' at age 9, but now it seems a bit different :). I remember the plane sequence where the bloodrust propagates throughout the plane as being a lot longer. Anyway, I do think it was fairly well written, and the narrative style helped make it more terrifying at the time.
I also agree that The Fly was not as scary, but the scene where the fly calls out 'help me' was extremely 'memorable' as well.
The ending in 'Spacemaster' did seem to come too soon, the movie seemed to go by quickly so, to me, that's a sign that it was well written and did not drag by. -
youroldpaljim25 September 2002When I was kid, I used to sometimes see stills or brief mentions of this film in science fiction movie books or in the pages of "monster" magazines. But for some strange reason this film never turned up on TV, even though other science fiction offerings made by Fox from the same period often did. No one I knew had seen it except for older people who saw it when it was first released in 1958 to theaters. Having seen it recently on video, I can tell you that SPACE MASTER X 7 is no "lost" classic, but its a not bad low budget drive in feature with a slightly unusual menace and director Edward Byrnes deserves credit for trying hard to make a serious (sometimes he tries to hard) adult science fiction thriller. Done in a semi-documentary style, Byrnes sometimes slows down the films pace but overall its not a bad job.
One area of interest to film buffs is the films casting. We have Paul ("man of a thousands voices") Frees in a surprisingly large on screen role as a "heel" scientist who accidently unleashes the "blood rust". Of course the person often mentioned in this film is Moe Howard of the Three Stooges, in a rare character part as a cab driver who helps the feds track down a woman who was exposed to the deadly alien fungus. This film was made when the stooges career was in limbo; between the time Columbia dropped the stooges because it was no longer interested in making shorts, and the time before they boys returned to the screen for feature films. Director Byrnes began his film career directing 3 Stooges shorts, and was good friends with the boys, so it was he who probably got Moe a part in the picture. -
breetles27 December 2006Finally some verification that I am not nuts. I have been searching the internet (and IMDb) for years for "blood rust" with no results and now, finally a verification that this film actually did exist. I saw it in Princeton, NJ in 1958 with my friend Mike (who did not recall any movie with "blood rust" when I ran into him years ago). No one I ever asked had heard of it. I did remember the title had an "X-" something in it. Now finally, others who were infected with blood rust are all coming forward. I didn't remember Moe being in it either, but the scene in the airplane with b-r oozing down the windows was an image that has stayed with me for 50 years. Can I get a copy on DVD anytime soon? The internet is good for some things.
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stevelomas-6940128 November 2021Not sure why they called it Space Master X7. This is more a very light film Noir chase thriller with some rubbery omelette monster thing in a supporting role. Still you can see how it is an ancestor of The Andromeda Strain or Contagion.
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An American space probe is sent in to space and it brings back an unwanted life form which the scientist who discovers it dubs " blood rust " . After being infected by it the scientist dies and investigators discover his assistant might be a carrier for the blood rust
Reading the synopsis for SPACE MASTER X-7 II was entirely convinced this was going to be an American B movie version of THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT with a spaceship returning to Earth containing rubbery fungus monsters which was a popular theme in 50s science fiction when humanity were sending probes in to space . . There are blobby monsters of sorts but in some ways this movie resembles a precursor to THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN with scientists fighting an alien menace in much the same way as they'd fight an evolving Earth bound mutating virus . It is produced in a documentary style detective type story but you're never able to consistently buy in to this style or scenario . As I said it's definite B movie pulp SF no matter what pretensions the film has and this is reflected in the rather cheap production values and not very good cast as they try and make the fantastic seem plausible and everything about seems dated -
michael.will17 March 2000Behind this bland, forgettable and indescriptive title is one of that decade's more interesting low budget items. "Blood Rust" was probably the script's original name, and this refers to the red coloring of Mars which, as is found out on the return of a space probe, is a fungal overgrowth that could easily thrive on the Earth. THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN, while not exactly a remake, shares both the panicky concept and something akin to realism in its approach. SPACE MASTER's an Edward Bernds quickie, no nonsense drive-in fare with logic secondary to pace, but there's a continual teetering on the edge of DETOUR-like brilliance that makes it, if not a classic, quite exceptional.
The strength of writing is ever evident, as the threat to humanity theme is subverted away from the usual conquering hero routine to documentary-like police procedural, the pursuers taking on near anonymity as our attentions, and sympathies, focus on the fleeing "Typhoid Mary". She's finely played by Lyn Thomas, a mature and intelligent 50s beauty in the Jan Sterling mode. We're told just as much as we need to know about her, that she once was involved in an S&M fling (I kid you not, it's ALL THERE in 1958) with arrogant scientist Paul Frees (Richard Deacon doing Clifton Webb, and does he deliver cutting lines!) Their unholy reliance resulted in a child that she now wants back in her new life of respectability. His experiments with the alien fungus result in his hideous death and the government, knowing that she was with him at the time, has to track her down so that she won't infect the world. However, they can't throw the public into panic (cover-up stuff, another first) by saying why they've put out an all-points bulletin out on her, so she goes into hiding and flees so that she won't be framed for his murder! Now I ask you, how often do you run into plot intricacies (as opposed to absurdities) like this during your typical monster movie round-up?
At the same time SPACE MASTER X-7 is as frustrating as it's intriguing, because get-it-out-on-schedule Bernds never quite takes that extra step ahead of his time. There's a beautiful scene involving Miss Thomas and a cop the predates PSYCHO, where you're rooting for her to get away and the world's fate be damned, and though this perversion of empathy carries on the irony of it is somehow lost in the climactic shuffle. Said climax, stunningly prepared for in both mood and pacing, aboard a threatened air liner complete with children on the threshold of death, is shied away from in terms of intensity when it could've become a Hitchockian runaway carousel. One feels, by the movie's end, that something truly magnificent just didn't quite break free from the shackles of its period's conventions.
I think this one's ripe for a remake and hopefully by someone with brains and taste. It certainly has a plot, very friendly to updating, that doesn't sit still. One thing that gets this film footnoted out of the collective amnesia is the presence of Moe Howard as a cab driver. He's funny as can be but plays it straight, as a regular Joe who finds himself in the midst of things, and makes one wish that, like brother Shemp, he and the rest of those Stooges would've done a little more dramatic character work. -
mark.waltz17 May 2022It's all because of one nasty female (Lyn Thomas) that cities across the United States might end up the victim of "Blood Rust", a fungus from outer space that threatens to take over the world. She'd been harassing scientist Paul Frees who was working on an experiment with it, and because of her interference, the fungus got on the loose, causing death and destruction, and eventually taking over a plane that she's traveling on incognito, having avoided the polive, unaware of the potential danger that she's causing. The fungus, looking in black and white like a giant omelet being slowly cooked in butter, is probably one of the silliest looking creators of Destruction, weather inside a big glass jar or covering people's luggage at the bottom of the plane.
The film focuses for a good half hour on the search for Thomas, and any detail concerning the fungus stops in its tracks. Thomas's performance goes from very pushy and in your face in the first 20 minutes to film noir style xixen in trouble in the next 20, then all of a sudden noble in the last two minutes. Frees, best known for his very familiar voice over talons, makes a rare live on-screen appearance, playing a not so noble character. Bill Williams is the federal agent searching for Thomas, very authoritative throughout. But there are so many switches in moods and seams in the film's script and the fungus never really does have the same impact that the same year's "The Blob" did. Frankly, I thought this was just a silly bore and it was a challenge to get through. -
dodgercodger7 March 2010Just happened to come across this "gem" on FOX Movie channel, expecting another 50s SciFi/Cold War blend. I missed the first few minutes (the bit with the ex-wife in the lab) but now (after reading the summary and other reviews) her panic makes sense.
Great surprise to see Moe Howard. I didn't see Paul Frees in the flesh (while he had it...), but did recognize his voice at Union Station. As an L.A. native, I'm always looking for scenes with 50s L.A. landmarks. (I didn't recognize the airport as the nascent LAX, though). The scene with Moe at the police station, using the plastic layovers to recreate the face was terrific, straight out of a DRAGNET-style episode.
Sure, by 2010 standards it's hokey. The Special Effects are weak, the storyline is lame, and the ending a bit too contrived. But there are hundreds of movies being shown on the dozens of movie channels that are much worse than this genuine diamond. Hopefully more of you will catch it next time 'round. -
bkoganbing12 November 2017This independent cheapie released by 20th Century Fox had a potential to be a lot better than it was. Clearly also the plot was ripped off from that other 20th Century Fox film Panic In The Streets.
Try as I might I could not get passed the fact that the military would let Dr. Paul Frees take home cultures of this fungus taken from outer space. It's a fungus that is rust colored and it is apparently what gives Mars its color. Which begs the question what in that world does it feed on.
After a fight with his ex-wife who is visiting him on custodial issues Paul Frees is killed when that red fungus gets loose. Bill Williams and Robert Ellis representing security for the space program are on a desperate hunt for Lyn Thomas the ex-wife who they know was the last person to see Frees alive as she is unknowingly carrying the stuff.
From that god awful premise the film does in fact become exciting and the climax on board a Honolulu bound flight over the ocean is very well staged.
If this had been produced at a major studio like Fox and given a decent budget this might well have become a science fiction classic. -
vawlkee_200010 October 2009Better than it had a right to be! The premise was good, the screenplay was good, even the acting and direction were good. When I was in grammar school, the film was re-released about 1960 and several of my schoolmates kept referring to the "blood rust", some calling it "blood lust" and telling me about the film, I was jealous! I figured it was some sort of zany shocker but never *sighs* got to see it on the big screen. 2009 rolls around and The Fox Movie Channel runs it and at long last I get to see it......Quite good! I have to admit that I was disappointed only because it was such a literate and well handled film and not something akin to a Corman flick. Paul Frees, one of the most overused voices in H'wood gives an amazingly solid performance as an obsessed scientist. I also like the stock music tracks used as well...I picked up several composers in the mix, not the least was Victor Lazslo. Too slick for it's own good! As a child I would have been bored, but not now.....
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Dr. Pommer (Paul Frees) is an arrogant and somewhat crazy scientist. He's in charge of an experiment where a space probe (hence the title of the film) is launched to try to capture "space spores". The experiment is a success BUT the spores are deadly. He soon realizes that they could breed uncontrollably and on protein (such as blood or flesh)--yet he continues to work on these spores all by himself in his own private lab--without adequate safeguards in case these spores got loose. And, not surprisingly, they eventually do--consuming the doctor. When this is discovered, the place is burned and fumigated and everyone who came in contact with the place was completely decontaminated....but this might not be enough. A woman, Pommer's lover, was apparently there but has since left. Could she be unknowingly transporting this fungus with her? This so-called "blood rust" has already apparently consumed the surface of Mars--would the Earth, too, soon become the next "red planet"?! I expected that the rest of the film would be an Earth versus the monster sort of thing, but instead of showing giant fungi attacking buildings and civilians, it was instead more of a detective-type movie. Much of the film shows the governmental authorities in their frantic attempts to find this woman. At the same time, she THINKS they are after her about some crime or that the police exposure might tip off the police about her affair--so the harder the authorities try to hunt for her, the harder she tries to vanish! This approach was pretty interesting--a definite improvement over just another monster from space film.
Overall, an interesting sci-fi film that made the idea seem almost possible. Good acting and production values carry this film and make it worth seeing....really...even if the fungi looks pretty weird. The only negative is the use of stock footage of the plane landing--the markings aren't even the same as the plane you see in the film and it even appears to be a different model of plane!
By the way, Paul Frees, while not a household name, is someone you will probably recognize when I tells you why he's famous. While he acted in quite a few films and wrote music for quite a few more, he's most known for his voice work--such as dubbings of films, TV shows (such as playing Boris Badenov on the "Bullwinkle" show) and the voice of the narrator in the haunted mansions at Disneyland and Disney World.
Also, in an odd cameo, Moe Howard of the Three Stooges fame plays a cab driver. He was between contracts and earned a few dollars in this small role. -
etainerric-128 October 2020Maybe it was Space master X- 7 but I remember Blood Rust I was five or six When I saw it! My older sister and I beg my parents to be able to see the movie that was with it The Fly! I was pretty young to see that movie and I got what I wished for. In the movie the Fly when they finally took off the covering of the fly head I freaked out and started crying and my dad come to the theater it was a small town in Idaho and I just remember crying myself right out of the theater: I believe! I had nightmares after that! Remember that when you have two younger children to go see a horror film! My sister and I had begged my parents to let us go! I went to the movies every weekend usually with my older sister from about the time I was about four till 12yrs and usually saw double features! Sometimes we saw each movie two or three times from noon until midnight ! My grandmother also had an interest in a movie theater in Bountiful Utah and we got passes even though it was just $.25 for most movies! Most fantastic movie I ever saw was Forbidden Planet which I went to see with my dad on the big screen: it was amazing! It was my favorite movie being an actor and writer I have a great appreciation for that screenplay the plot and special-effects and acting! Forbidden Planet had production value in special effects and serious plot that was was 20 years ahead of its time! Nostalgia Time!
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dougdoepke20 March 2010Space fungus menaces planet earth. Okay, everything else was menacing the besieged 1950's planet, so why not a creepy fungus. Well, it's actually a bloody slime from outer space that spreads like a dirty carpet, and unless trackers can catch up with the shapely blonde Typhoid Mary (Thomas) carrying it, we're all one big toadstool. I'm trying hard, but I just don't recall this epic from 1958, and I rarely missed one of these drive-in specials. According to IMDb, TCF didn't syndicate the film, which is why, I guess, it's gone unseen for 50 years.
Actually, the movie's pretty well produced for its kind. The location shots lend at least some credibility to the wacky plot. And catch those early versions of protective Hazmat suits in the train yard scene. Williams and Ellis do well as the bloodhounds, but why Ellis remains a lowly Pfc with his officer-level credentials seems odd. Also, I really like the unheralded Lyn Thomas as the nervous blonde.
Note that brilliant screenwriter Dan Mainwaring, e.g. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Out of the Past (1947), collaborated on the screenplay. I'm guessing that promising trapped-in-the-airliner concept came from him. Too bad the full potential of those scenes is not realized by director Bernds. At the same time, the movie ends all-too-abruptly, as though the production suddenly ran out of money. I get the feeling that with better backing and a more perceptive director, this drive-in programmer could have turned into an uptown smash on the order of Alien (1980). -
plan9-149-95981413 April 2016I have no idea why other reviewers are upbeat about this one. First, it barely qualifies as sci-fi; it's mostly a dry melodrama. The plot involves scientist Paul Frees who discovers an alien fungus that grows in his lab and kills him passively (looking mostly like a hunk of wet canvas).
But the majority of the movie involves his estranged wife, supposedly a carrier of the fungus; she is constantly on the run, believing she's criminally involved with his death. We never ever see the monster in action, we only glimpse it a few anticlimactic moments. The stuff shows up in a freight car, in her apartment, but illogically, she is never affected by it; nor do we ever see it attack anyone. The film ends with stock footage of an airplane making an emergency landing.
And that's all you get. If you want better fare along these lines, try MUTINY IN OUTER SPACE. This one's totally forgettable. -
gpeltz20 December 2010I was ten years old back in nineteen fifty eight. My Grandmother dropped me off at the theater, The Lowe's Paradise (a grand movie palace) in the Bronx, while she went shopping. I wanted to see the first of the double feature,"The Fly". I was fascinated by the colorful lab scenes, The hydraulic press got to me, as did the fly's head on the guy, and the the spider web finale. The movie was a classic, but I also remembered "Blood Rust" from the co feature. That was not it's name. It's title was Space Master X-7. It was in black and white, I remember the bubbling blobs in the bell jars. The image stayed with me. Far more so than the adult storyline. I was too young to appreciate the non monster parts. I would like to see this one again as an adult. It reminded me in retrospect of the Quartermass films. Particularly "The Creeping Unknown" I had been mistakenly calling the film, "Rocket-Ship XM" An altogether different film with a somewhat similar title.
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jamesrupert201423 March 2020After Dr. Pommer (Paul Frees) is killed by virulent Martian fungus, a desperate search begins for the only other person exposed to the pestilence: his ex-wife (Lyn Thomas), who doesn't know the danger that she presents to the planet and has personal reasons not to be found. The film, which opens with a prologue telling viewers that it is a true story (don't worry, it's not), is essentially a documentary-like 'procedural' as agents of the Organization for Internal Security track down the woman while an ominous, expository voice-over marks the passing of time. For a low-budget B-film, 'Space Master X-7' is reasonably well done. Although the science is pretty wobbly (Pommer essentially figures out the entire life-history of the space-fungus, including its brain-like features (!), by looking at a sample through a microscope), a reasonable rationale is provided for the secrecy of the pursuit and for the woman's desperate attempts to avoid apprehension (which is what drives the plot) and the various containment strategies deployed when the invasive extra-terrestrial is found are plausible. The procedural logic waivers a bit after the woman boards the plane to Hawaii (once it's established that the agent would tell one potential suspect what is going on, its unclear why he would not tell all of them). The cast and acting are fine in what is essentially a detective film with a sci-fi McGuffin. There is a lot of talking, not a lot happens, things wrap up too quickly and, typical for low-budget films, the scale of the problem (a fungus that presents an existential threat to life on Earth) is greatly out of proportion to the response (a handful of admittedly hard-working 'OIS' agents). Still, the film is entertaining with some offbeat casting (Stooge Moe Howard in a light-dramatic role and voice-impresario Paul Frees as a somewhat unpleasant scientist), a pretty good story, and reasonable production values considering the budget. The ridiculous title sounds more like a Flash Gordon-style space-frolic than a vérité sci-fi drama and presumably was added in the hope of cashing in on Sputnik/space-race excitement (as evidenced by the prominent rocket ship on the poster and the tag-line: "Satellite terror strikes the Earth", which has little to do with the actual story).
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geg104311 March 2006As a 12 year old, this was the most mind blowing movie of my childhood. Much more scary than the "A" movie, The Fly (great movie), released with it. I would always think that the mold would get into the house and eat me away (something like Necrotizing Fasciitis). Even though this movie is in B&W, the movie, for me, was much scarier than the BLOB. This is one of the two most psyche scaring movies of my childhood...the other being GOG. Honorable mention for this segment would go to the Crawling Eye, Invasion of the Saucermen, and War of the Satellites. My dad was a sci-fi nut as much as me and the two of us would see every new release as soon as they came out. These movies are very much part of my upbringing/childhood. I would love to get a copy of Blood Rust/SpaceMaster X7.
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Leofwine_draca29 December 2016Strong technical production values highlight this passable science fiction offering from the '50s, which is good because it lacks both action and excitement. The budget is a big hindrance in that the special effects of the space-fungus going on a rampage really are dire; a moving sheet with some lumps of rubber stuck to it does not make a threatening menace in my opinion, nor does the sight of a pizza coming out of someone's suitcase. Despite the flaws and lack of any worthwhile B-movie thrills, the film is watchable thanks to a strong cast and their well-developed characters. For once in a '50s film we grow to like and have an interest in the characters involved, whether it be Lyn Thomas's "Typhoid Mary" character, a woman who unknowingly carries the extraterrestrial bacteria upon her, or Robert Ellis as the driver-turned-hero. Strong character turns from Bill Williams - as the stern, deadly serious John Hand - and Paul Frees as the angry and love-struck scientist highlight the rest of the supporting cast to good effect.
Unfortunately the title is something of a misnomer, seeing as this is a purely earthbound thriller with little in the way of sci-fi elements. Instead, much of the film opts for a hard-boiled detective story approach with only a few moments in dingy laboratories or with rampaging monsters. The pacing is fast and the music under worked but effective and the dialogue sharp. Never does the film become boring or outstay its welcome, as the short running means the film is compacted down into a series of short, often gripping scenes. The military investigation into the fungus is kept interesting thanks to the aforementioned characters and events culminate in a thrilling episode on a plane, where the virus gets loose. Sadly this is followed by an unexplained conclusion; one moment we see the fungus covering the plane, the next it has disappeared and everyone is walking away into the sunset happily. What?! I guess they really did run out of budget at the end of the film and just had to tie it up as quickly as possible, no matter how unsatisfactory that might be. Otherwise, SPACE MASTER X-7 is an intelligent, non-campy and effective '50s thriller surprising in its maturity considering the cheesy theme. -
kc5arb4 August 2004I figure I saw this gem when I was about 11, back when I lived in Queens NY.
My memories are similar to the other notations on this flic, except that I was too young to form an opinion about its artistic merits. My real memory was the term blood rust, and the memory of a scene where detectives were finding it in a boxcar. (Ok, its possible I mixed that one up with a scene from "Them". I remembered it as the b part running with This Island Earth, but it may well have been playing with the Fly, as others indicated. The long and this short of it was that this one bugged me, as I could until recently find no movies referenced to "blood Rust". None of the printed compendiums of Sci-Fi movies helped. A recent call for help on another web site finally gave me the Space Master title, which did the trick! A 45 year mystery solved!
Now I need to find a copy! -
SpaceMaster X7 was both one of the best SciFi movies I watched as a kid, and one of the worst. How can I say that you may ask? Well, for the best part it had a profound affect on my psyche (is this a good thing). Whenever I saw something that looked a little odd, like a patch of mold growing along the brick of our house, I immediately thought of BloodRust and went screaming inside! Since this movie was the 2nd half of a double feature, and was never put into syndication, I had only seen it one time(unlike other 1950s SciFi movies that were shown continually on television during the 70s, 80s, 90s, and even now). Therefore, over the years, my imagination added a lot to what I remembered about this movie. When I finally found a copy being sold on the internet, I grabbed it up. Boy, what a disappointment. This movie is pure doo doo. Oh well, chock another one up to childhood imagination.
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Hitchcoc10 July 2015A quick moving film about what happens when we aren't careful with potentially deadly, unknown substances. Here, an arrogant scientist is acting on his own and unleashes a kind of plant/creature that devours everything in its path. After an encounter with his ex he is eaten by the thing. Forces move in and burn the creature but it has contaminated other objects and may be carried by the ex-wife. Much of the movie involves hunting down this woman who thinks she is suspected of murder. I have to admit that the interrogation of different women on a plane aren't done very well. Perhaps the first thing you do is lay it on the line. There is good suspense at the end and it leaves one with a little something in the pit of the stomach. Good 1950's stuff.
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kwcman28 December 2006I saw this movie only one time... in 1958, when I was seven years old.I still remember it to this day which is a good indicator of the impact that this movie left on me.
The image that stands out in my mind is that of the Blood Rust virus. I can still see it in my mind after nearly fifty years. I can still recall the pulse of urgency that ran throughout the movie. In all the years that have passed since I saw this film, I have only run into one person who even recalled it. I was beginning to think that I had imagined its existence.
After reading the review on IMDb, I can only assume that I saw it the same day that I saw "The Fly" in a theater on Solano Avenue in Berkeley, California. (In the 1950's, kids could see two movies and a bunch of cartoons on a Saturday afternoon for a quarter.)
If there is a copy of this movie available on DVD or VHS, I would surely love to purchase one. -
RanchoTuVu11 March 2010A scientist takes a collection of material that was gathered in outer space by a satellite to his own private laboratory, which is located in his desert house. His ex-wife shows up and a fight ensues over custody of their son, who's at a boarding school. As he's busy analyzing this material, which he refers to as blood rust, the ex-wife interrupts the work enough for him to relent on the question of custody, so that he can work in peace. However, the fungus blood rust replicates itself quite fast. Will it destroy life on earth or will the other scientists and police agencies locate the one person (the ex-wife) who had come into contact with it and decontaminate her in time? Personally, I didn't really care either way. The best part of the film was seeing Moe Howard as the taxi driver who drives the ex-wife from the house, and is later questioned by the authorities. It seemed as if he was trying to keep a lid on the Stooge background and play the scene straight. However, once a Stooge, always a Stooge. The rest of the film seemed to squander the intriguing storyline, either through lack of adequate funding, or poor management of the action (although there are a few scenes that present the disturbing menace of the blood rust fungus).