JOURNEY TO THE SEVENTH PLANET (1962) is the third and final offering in the so-called “Cinemagic Trilogy” after THE ANGRY RED PLANET (1960) and REPTILICUS (1961). Cinemagic was a production company founded by producer-director Sidney Pink and the Danish born writer and director Ib Melchior. While it is not the most technically accomplished of the three (that distinction belongs to PLANET), JOURNEY is the most interesting plot wise. As the title proclaims, it tells the story of a rocket trip to Uranus (here pronounced u-RAH-nus) and what happens to the crew of that spaceship once they get there.Like its predecessor REPTILICUS, JOURNEY was a Danish-American co-production and was filmed in Denmark. Unlike the previous movie which had an all Danish cast, American actor John Agar was brought in and given top billing.
The imaginative storyline, which would be copied 10 years later in the big budget Soviet epic SOLARIS, has the astronauts discovering that Uranus looks and has everything that they remembered or desired back on Earth.. That’s because the super intelligence that controls the planet is capable of reading their minds and recreating their memories.. For each crew member it is different. One sees the farm he grew up on in Denmark. Another sees an apple orchard while a third encounters his childhood sweetheart. The John Agar character sees several women all dressed up and ready for a night on the town. Of course they know it can’t be real but they succumb to it anyway. Just what is it that the super brain wants to do and how do the astronauts fit into its plans? *NO SPOILER ALERT* You’ll just have to watch it to find out.
Once again the space crew travel without spacesuits and sit around in business office furniture while the ship’s equipment hasn’t changed much since the 1950s. Lots of lights and dials plus handles and buttons to push. There’s even a porthole. But we don’t watch these movies expecting technical excellence, it’s the story and the characters that we care about. Right? Of course not. It’s the monster and once again we have a giant eye creature at the center of it all. Since this movie was distributed and partially financed by American International, we get stock footage from their 1959 opus EARTH-vs-THE SPIDER. The “Cinemagic” effects this time around include, swirling colors, stop motion animation, and stick-in-the-ground Hobby Lobby style fake plants although to be fair, the astronauts know this as they pull one out.
While it’s all cheesy sci-fi B movie fun, what sticks with you during the movie are the psychedelic changing primary colors and the “I can control your minds”voiceover narration. The last two elements made the movie “a trip” to watch in the late 1960s and helped to turn it into a cult favorite. Last but not least is the title song JOURNEY TO THE SEVENTH PLANET sung by Otto Brandenburd. It’s a 1960s Europop classic if ever there was one but you have to watch the ending credits all the way through to experience it. JOURNEY has been released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber who neglected to include subtitles. Your best bet is the ols MIDNITE MOVIES DVD which not only features closed captioning but is also in the proper aspect ratio. Someday I would love to see all 3 Cinematic features in one set with lots of extras.
The Capsule Critic 