Cinematic Titanic: Doomsday Machine

Movie: (1967/72) A spy discovers that Red China is preparing to use a doomsday device.  The US and USSR decide to pool resources and staff an about-to-depart Venus exploration mission with females, in case the world needs to be repopulated.  Unfortunately after the end of the world things take an even darker turn.

First released: 6/19/2008 (DVD, download)

Premise: We get a brief background at the start.  According to one of the assistants shepherding the riffers, “there’s a rift in the electron scaffolding that may cause these movies to be lost to future generations.”   Also, they like their old TV show.  

Opening: The silhouettes of the riffers are escorted into the theater by a couple of assistants, who relay the premise and offer to provide robots.  As the riffers speak a headshot is provided for identification.  There is some discussion of the credits and backgrounds of some cast members.

Skit: Trace has something to get off his chest, but Joel’s countdown is hard to ignore.

Skit: Mary Jo ponders what would happen if only three riffers would be allowed to live.  Luckily, a Thunderdome is provided.

End: Everyone wanders out at the end credits.  Joel inserts a “nanotated” disk into the “time tube,” which is also shown on the spine of the DVD.

Extra: No extras.

Availability: on Hulu, Amazon (DVD) and Amazon Instant.  The original download service (EZTakes) does not seem to still be available.

Reminds me of:  First Spaceship to Venus, with touches of Rocketship X-M and Monster-A-Go-Go.

Joel’s and Frank's Take:  here.

Stray observations:

This is a strange one.  As Joel’s write up describes, the movie goes completely off the rails for the last 13 minutes, although I would argue that following up the destruction of the earth with attempted rape/murder-suicide was already taking the film in a darker direction.

Starting off, you have what would seem to be a reasonably entertaining cold war spy film, with an attractive female Chinese agent.  This lasts all of about five minutes, followed by some vaguely misogynistic astronauts being dismissive of last minute female additions to their crew.  Okay, maybe something there, and the press corps briefing and countdown stuff is fine, the spaceship set is laughable and the external shots seem to be switch between at least three different spaceship models.  However the lighter vibe is quickly ruined by Major Rapist, who quickly goes from berating to flirting to attempted rape. 

The Noah’s Ark theme is quickly complicated by unexpected radiation, and suddenly the crew has to be pared from seven survivors to only three.  The three are chosen impersonally by the computer… the computer programed by the old man, who is oddly chosen to be the only male survivor.  Okay, now it’s getting into Alive territory, but luckily the others rebel and/or kill each other.  With the crew now down to five, rational thought seems like it might take over, but suddenly it’s time to send out the comedy relief guy and his Russian girlfriend (all these relationships seem to blossom off-screen) to fix a mechanical problem.  Great, two men and one woman to repopulate the human race—good plan. 

Even here, there is a last-minute attempt at a decent resolution with the pair finding a lost Russian spacecraft, but then the lights go out and another pair of actors find a frozen tomb, lose contact with the parent craft, and eventually are told (in the second deus ex machina in a row) by the ‘collective consciousness’ of Venus that the others are dead, and they will have a new future beyond the universe.  And… that’s it (“suddenly, there was no monster”).  Thirteen out of eight-three minutes or about 16% of the movie run time is padded with dull material that makes no sense.  It’s a bit of a cross between last year’s Gravity and Mullholland Drive.  This is hard going for the riffers, sort of their “sandstorm” or “rock climbing”, but as always they make the best of it.

Cast and crew roundup:  Reliable Lee Sholem, second director (brought on for the added final minutes), was also director of Catalina Caper.  You could hardly imagine a greater range for his last two films, but there you go.  Grant Williams, best known as The Incredible Shrinking Man, was also the dimwitted Bob in Oozing Skull.  These were two of his last films.  Most of the cast had a long list of TV guest appearances, while Essie Lin Chia evidently had a long career in Hong Kong cinema, including an appearance in Black Samurai that looks interesting.  (That is not, sad to say, the upcoming East meets Watts.)

Callbacks: "This is like watching someone watch Manos: the Hands of Fate."  & “A gumball machine head on a robot? I’m sorry but that’s lame.”
Fave riff:  “I’ll take ‘things a rapist might say’ for $400.”

Next week:  Film Crew struggles with the “Wild Women of Wongo”!