Target Earth
(1954)

Bum bum BUMMM! Bumbumbumbum!

Ahhhh.. the incredibly bombastic title score, you’ve gotta love it. When accompanied by a black and white studio title card, you know you’re in for some fun 50s cheese. (Throw in an AIP logo, and I’m in complete B-movie bliss. This isn’t an AIP flick, but anyway…)

I’m kind of stretching the rules here for the Post-Apocalypse Roundtable. Technically, Target Earth doesn’t deal with the apocalypse per se; the main characters are simply left behind in an evacuated city. But, the feel and tone of a post-apocalypse world are definitely there, so I think this movie fits. Please direct all complaints to the management. No cash refunds. Void where prohibited. Not valid in Ohio.

Target Earth, while definitely flawed, was a surprisingly fun and effective little flick. I’ve read some other reviews of this movie, and there seems to be a general air of disappointment. Many people find it dull, and the robot villains to be cheap and laughable. To this I say, fooey ka-flooey! Yes, the movie may drag a bit here and there, but I found many elements of the movie to be pretty tense and exciting. As El Santo said in his review, the movie has a definite claustrophobic feel that adds to the mood. And if you can’t manage to enjoy some big, boxy, lumbering robots, well… the next bus out of Fun City is here, get on it.

We start out seeing Nora King awakening in the middle of the afternoon; it’s apparent that she’s taken a helluva lot of sleeping pills; the contents of the open bottle are scattered all over the bed. Looking out of her window, she’s disturbed (to say the least) to find the streets of the city completely deserted. Rising and getting dressed (in a smart dress, pearls and high heels; this is the 50s, after all), she checks the other residents of her tenement to find it as deserted as the streets outside her window. I was particularly impressed with the use of silence in this scene; the complete lack of city noise, not to mention the absence of the usual hum made by other residents within an apartment building heightens the growing sense of panic that Nora feels as she looks for someone, anyone. She leaves her building and begins to search the streets (as the score sneaks in, punctuating her growing fear), finding herself completely alone. Alone, that is, until she stumbles across a woman lying in a doorway, stone dead. Nora, of course, screams (and the viewer gets a good chuckle at the not-quite appropriate mildly disgruntled look on the corpse’s face), and backs up into… surly cigarette smoking guy!

Taking him for the killer, let’s face it, the guy is scowling and didn’t exactly announce himself before creeping up behind her, she takes off running. “Hey, wait! I’m not going to hurt you!” says the pursuing surly cigarette smoking guy. Oh, thanks, now you tell her. Catching up to her, he cements this movie into the 50s by stopping Nora’s hysterics in true manly fashion:

Smack!

“That’s more like it.”

Gee, what a guy.

Nora compares notes with her new companion, who introduces himself as Frank. (Of course. I think all men in movies like this are named Frank, Joe, or Steve.) Frank is as confused as she is; he’s in town for business and celebrated a bit too much the night before. Apparently, someone got an eyeful of the “big roll” he was carrying, because he got socked in the head and woke up broke. He’s been wandering the streets as well, looking for anyone else… well, anyone else still alive, that is. (Devo fans! Check out the boxing poster on the brick wall behind them! “Kid Hook vs. Twin Spud!)

Our heroes suddenly hear a tinkling piano. They follow the sound inside a swanky nightclub, where Vicky and Jim are doing what I would do if I were in their situation: boozing it up. These are my kind of post-apocalypse survivors! Like Nora and Frank, they managed to sleep through whatever it was that cleaned out the city. Apparently, Jim won some cash and their resulting boozy celebration put them out for the evening. They’re both still pretty sloppy, but with the information Frank can get out of them, he concludes that most likely, the city has been evacuated. Which can only mean one thing; they also need to leave the area, toot sweet. Jim and Vicky are reluctant to leave the club, but Frank manages to lure them with the promise of more booze-stocked bars along the way. Ho-ho! Those wacky lushes!

Leaving the bar, they spot a car that they hopefully could use to get out of the city. (Why they missed seeing this land yacht before is beyond me.) After getting rid of the inevitable dead guy behind the wheel, they attempt to start it with no luck. Checking under the hood, they find the distributor cap is missing. Every car in the city is missing its distributor cap, says… creepy twitchy guy!

Christ, does everyone sneak up behind people in this movie?

Frank recalls that in London during the war, the Brits would do the same thing with their cars, in order to prevent their use by an invading enemy. Uh-oh. Charles Otis, for that is creepy twitchy guy’s awesome name, tells them that he’s also been wandering through the deserted city, looking for a way to escape. From his information, they decide the only way to get out alive is to head South, before the “invaders,” whoever they may be, stumble upon our little group.

Charles, being the twitchy, nervous guy that he is, is obviously going to be victim #1, and we’re not disappointed. He’s too afraid to stay inside the hotel with the others, and makes a break for it, running smack into one of the invaders. It’s a big, boxy robot!

Yayy!

It’s a little over six feet tall, with claw hands, a weird codpiece thing (!) and a head that looks like a television. It’s not broadcasting Howdy Doody, though, as Charles finds out when a death ray blasts out of the screen, killing him instantly. Fortunately, ‘Ol Boxy doesn’t notice the rest of the group, and they stay hidden in the hotel while trying to formulate a plan.

Meanwhile, in a Military Base somewhere, the Army Guys are trying to formulate a plan to defeat the robots. The head scientist (Whit Bissell! Awesome!), who is theorizing that the robots have come from Venus (?), has been assigned to discover a weakness in the enemy. Fortunately, they’ve discovered a deactivated robot lying by the side of the road (I guess the robots also just dump their junk anywhere). If he can manage to figure out what shut down this robot and caused the crack in its bulletproof faceplate, they may stand a fighting chance.

Barring that? They could always bomb the city. Which is Plan B.

Frank and the others had better get cracking.

Things quickly snowball from here. The group realizes they’re not exactly alone on the planet anymore when they see a group of fighter planes blasted to smithereens by the robot death rays. (By the way, I find it incredibly charming how in movies like this, “robot” is pronounced “robutt.” It’s so innocent.) Soon, the group’s hiding place is discovered by the invaders, and they’re on the run. Add to this the additional complication of a new addition to the group, specifically a gun waving, sadistic sociopath that’s wanted for murder, and things aren’t looking too good for our heroes.

Will they escape with their lives? Will the scientists discover a means to destroy the robots before they bomb the city, taking the survivors with them? Will that robot manage to climb the flight of stairs?

Target Earth is a goofily entertaining little “end of the world” flick that manages, through mood and effective direction, to surpass its paltry budget and unconvincing special effects. I found it to be a lot of fun; you could do a lot worse with this genre. And who doesn’t love a movie with big, stomping, clunky robots?

Get down with the Klown, rent it tonight.

Four Cream Pies out of Five. Creamy goodness. With a cherry on top.