- Original theatrical poster - image courtesy of MySciFi
The title Forbidden Planet refers, literally speaking, to the planet Altair IV, many light years from Earth and refuge for a scientist, Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon), and his daughter Altaira (Anne Francis), who has never known humanity or civilization outside of what she's learned through books and stories.
The story here concerns a cruiser sent to Altair IV to discover the fate of a research party dispatched there 20 years ago, of which only the doctor and his daughter remain. When landing coordinates are requested, the doctor urges the crew to abandon their mission, that he cannot guarantee their safety. Hence, forbidden. But there are other heavenly bodies this title refers to as well.
Loosely adapted from Shakespeare's final play, The Tempest, Forbidden Planet is - forgive my affinity for accidental puns - something of a perfect storm of creativity, long recognized as one of the most important early science fiction films and rightfully so.
To say nothing of the introduction of the iconic Robby the Robot (a prop that cost more than most other films of this kind did in their entirety), the film wields impressive visuals equal parts realistic and phantasmagorical, a stunning level of detail work selling the scenario wholesale even as the art design ravishes the senses.
And amongst the genre, there may be no rival when it comes to fusing an intellectual premise with serial storytelling euphoria. It's a B movie with A values.
Forbidden Planet benefits exponentially for the coyness that had to accompany the execution of sexually related material of the day, and its tongue-in-cheek consideration of gender politics would likely crumble without it. A curious nineteen-year-old girl and manly men having been cooped up in outer space is an obvious recipe for trouble, and it isn't long before some of the soldiers are taking advantage of her naivety for the sake of their own repressed longings ("I was only trying to be nice about kissing the lieutenant!").
Chivalry lives on, however, and the film uses these risque passages not only to examine character integrity, but as a porthole into a story more substantially associated with the unspoken longings of the human mind.
Dr. Morbius has been studying the long-lost civilization of the Krell, who lived on Altair IV and had far exceeded the knowledge and technical capacity of humanity before suddenly being wiped out, all at once, seemingly on the eve of their greatest accomplishment yet.
As strange, inexplicable happenings begin to crop up with and around the new visitors, it becomes obvious that the doctor's research is somehow related not only to these new events, but whatever it was that managed to wipe out the entire team that first arrived 20 years prior. Without intent or realization, Morbius has managed to create his own Frankenstein creation, and for the sake of the uninitiated, the less said about where the film goes from here, the better.
If there's an art form to be made out of the stylized, borderline hammy performances best suited to this genre, Forbidden Planet might be the master class example to which all others can refer. Foreshadowing his comedy career to come, the young Leslie Neilsen strikes a perfect chord between the high and low brow, grounding things in a theatrical seriousness that isn't without room for the film's subversive wit (Robby the Robot's production of a much-needed beverage for the crew is a high mark of devilish humor).
Everyone else operates at the same pitch, not unlike an expert theater troupe. The tragicomic tone would have done the Bard proud, and at even only 98 minutes, Forbidden Planet is positively epic.
Forbidden Planet. Dir. Fred M. Wilcox. Perf. Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen, Jack Kelly, Warren Stevens, Frankie Darro. MGM, 1956. Running Time: 98 min.
