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Visit To A Small Planet (1960)
Topic Started: Oct 8 2008, 06:44 PM (391 Views)
Laughing Gravy
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Visit to a Small Planet (Savoy Film/Sunfilm, Germany, Region 2, 8.95 Euros)

I’ve never seen the original Gore Vidal play on which this film is based, although I’ve read it and frankly don’t remember it as being any great interplanetary shakes. The property was acquired by Paramount, which thought it would make a good vehicle for Jerry Lewis. They should’ve waited a couple of decades and cast Robin Williams.

Jerry is Kreton, a goofball exchange student from 8 million light years away. Whatever the spacemen got in the exchange, get it back. Jerry’s not only fascinated by the Civil War, which he's accidentally landed on Earth 100 years too late to observe, but his race has done away with sex, so he shows a keen interest in observing it, which doesn’t bother Joan Blackman but annoys her boyfriend, Earl Holliman doing an intolerable Jethro Bodine impersonation, a great deal, and isn't THIS an impressive sentence.

Needless to say, Jerry mugs like mad, steps in and out of character, and acts like his usual cross between a nebbish and a nitwit (if there’s a difference). Still, the film is harmless enough, and Jer’s been a lot worse. Fred Clark, Gale Gordon, and John Williams are all on hand to stand around and look exasperated at Jerry’s antics, and if Edgar Kennedy had been alive, he’d probably be in the cast, too. If you do make it to the end of the film (which is a brisk 80 min. long but seems a great sluggish deal longer) you’ll love Jer’s beatnik dance with a gorgeous coffee shop chick. You’ll also be sorry Dean’s not around, I’ll bet.

The Savoy Film DVD is pedestrian, with some scratches here and there and at one point some water damage, it looks like. No trailer, but there is a nice photo gallery of promotional material from around the world. The DVD's in anamorphic widescreen, too. You have your choice between English or German soundtracks, but the opening credits are in German only(!).
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JazzGuyy
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The play was originally presented on TV and had Cyril Ritchard as the alien. I don't remember much else about it except that it is considered much better than the movie by most critics who have seen both. I believe there may be a surviving Kinescope of that presentation.
TANSTAAFL!
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