journey-to-the-seventh-planet-poster


Journey to the Seventh Planet was a 1962 science fiction film. It was shot in Denmark with a budget of only US$75,000. The seventh planet is, of course, Uranus, and a crew is being dispatched there by the United Nations on a mission of space exploration. The film’s ideas of astronauts exploring outer space only to confront their inner mindscapes and memories precede the similar-themed Solaris by a full decade (Although the novel Solaris precedes this film by a year). It is also reminiscent of Ray Bradbury’s 1948 short story Mars is Heaven! that appeared in the 1950 book The Martian Chronicles.

Trivia:

  • When officials at American International viewed the completed film, they decided that some of the Danish-produced special effects were so poor that they needed to be replaced. Two members of the independent special effects company Project Unlimited, Jim Danforth and Wah Chang, shot new footage to replace some of the Danish special effects. Some of the deleted footage was also replaced with tinted black-and-white monster footage from Earth vs. the Spider (1958).
  • Among the replacement footage used in the American International version was a brief special effects shot from The Angry Red Planet (1959).
  • The major contribution made to the American International version by Jim Danforth and Wah Chang was the giant cyclopean rodent monster. The monster’s roar was actually Rodan’s roar taken from Sora no daikaijû Radon (1956) (US title: “Rodan”).
  • Actor Ove Sprogøe claimed that he never participated in the movie, claiming he was sick the week it took to shoot the movie.

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Filed under: Science Fiction

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