Return to the Forbidden Planet

Like in every other movie there are some things the producers didn't want the public to notice. Here are a few scenes from the Forbidden Planet film, that shouldn't have passed the editing phase.
In the first scene, an unknown vehicle is rushing through the alien planet's desert, raising a dust cloud. In the next scene it was revealed to be Robby the robot, who had welcomed the flying saucer's crew and invited them to the Morbius' home. Captain Adams and a couple of his mates accept the invitation  and in a few minutes they rush through the desert by the same way back. However, this time the image is inverted. The big moon or the planet on the horizon is suddenly on the left side and all the rock formations have changed the sides. In fact, the departure scene is just the mirror of the arrival scene.

Arrival:

Departure (mirror of the arrival):

Forbidden planet's Monster from the ID part 3

 

For those of you who are sci fi fans, there is a new instalment of the Forbidden Planet's Id monster article on my Mesozoic Mosaic blog:

 

Forbidden planet's Monster from the ID part 3

 

Forbidden Planet again

 

Here are some stills from the movie

 

 

 

 

Forbidden planet and a mini skirt

Attractive actresses in the bold outfits or even nude, were quite often trumps in the sleeves of the movie producers, adding an additional dimension to the adventure, crime, romance, western, sci fi, history or any other type of the movie. In fact, there are more movies using that trick than those without it.
The Forbidden planet's only female star Anne Francis played the cute and sexy, and yet innocent role in the film perfectly. Her wardrobe consisted mainly of micro mini skirts, the fashion that was to conquer the World on storm, only about a decade later.
There are some nice high resolution images form the Forbidden planet on: Dr. Macro's High
Quality Movie Scans

Anne Francis died 80 years old in 2011.

Forbidden planet's Monster from the ID

  I keep watching Forbidden planet movie from time to time. It was so good, so ahead of its time in so many ways: from the music score to the design. One of my favourite scenes is when the captain and the doctor were speculating about the shape of the monster, deducting from cast of its footprint. It is quite similar to the real task when paleontologists are trying to figure out the characteristics and features of extinct animals who left only their petrified tracks in the rock. I search for the ancient tracks on the Adriatic coast and it is a lot of research and fun.

It is also amusing that some species of dinosaurs had claws, not unlike the one from the movie, but on their three-fingered hands. Check out the cast of the finger claw of the allosaurid theropod  Saurophaganax here :
 Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week

My drawings of the fossil bones of some theropod hands. Above is Megaraptor left hand (manus) and below is Allosaurus left hand:

Please, note that in life, the claw would be covered with a keratinous sheath - talon (like our nails) which would make it considerably longer.

The second part of this article continues on my Mesozoic Mosaic blog:

Forbidden planet's Monster from the ID part 2

Ray Harryhausen

Stop-motion animation master Ray Harryhausen had died at the age of 92 (1920 – 2013). I am tempted to call all the movies in which he was involved  Harryhausen's movies. Because, I am afraid, that without his skills and imagination those movies wouldn't be remembered at all.

My favourite was "The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad" (1958) and Ray's giant horned cyclops. I was so terrified by those monsters as a kid, that I wanted to watch the movie over and over again. Maybe only one monster was even cooler and more sinister: the invisible monster from Id featured in the "Forbidden planet" movie.