The Cosmic Man (1959)

Absolutely brilliant

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

***SPOILERS*** Traveling at speeds of 180,000 MPH the Cosmic Man, John Carradine, lands on earth in what looks like an either giant beach or cue ball in the western desert of the USA. At first seen only in shadows the Cosmic Man later fills out and is almost, but not quite, human looking as if he has just been liberated from a Nazi concentration camp. What his mission on earth is isn't made clear only that he's looking for rock and soil samples for his planet that it needs to survive.It's Dr. Karl Sorenson, Bruce Bennett, who feels that Cosmo or Mr. Cosmic is of no harm to the US and only wants to get a chance to talk with the guy about the peaceful use of nuclear power. It was in fact Dr. Sorenson who was one of the inventors of the atomic bomb that in flattening Hiroshima & Nagasaki in WWII that killed upwards of 200,000 innocent human beings. With that guilt on his head Dr. Sorenson wants to make good use of nuclear power not have it used as a weapon of mass destruction like in was in WWII. But the US military has other ideas. They want to do in the what turns out to be peace loving and harmless Cosmic Man because they fear that he has the same destructive ideas as they do in using his knowledge of advance nuclear power to conquer not only the USA but the entire earth!Taking a brake while picking rock & soil samples Mr. Cosmic runs into the polio stricken 12 year old Kenny Grant,Scotty Morrow, whom he feels that with his advanced knowledge on medical science he can help to walk again. He also gets smitten by Kenny's mom Kathy ,Angela Greene, a Korean War widow who's had to see and confront the hard reality that her bright little boy will not ever walk again but has barely, due to his illness, a year left to live. ***SPOILERS*** With the US military determined to take Mr. Cosmic into custody and force him, by water-boarding if necessary, to tell them the secrets of the universe as well as advance nuclear energy, that they can use against the USSR Communist China and possibly Communist Cuba, they send from the Penatgon this warmongering crazed mad scientist, a former member of Hitler's medical experiment team, Dr. Ignots "Man Dog" Steinholtz, Hal Torey, to keep the Cosmic Man from taking off on his giant beach or cue ball for home. That mad and insane attempt by Dr. Steinholtz to destroy the man, the Cosmic Man, from outer space in fact proved to be his, in never being taken seriously by the US Government again, demise! After collecting the rock & soil samples he was after in a show of good faith Mr. Cosmic also cured little Kenny of his polio even without the use of the Salk or Sabin vaccine.

"The Cosmic Man" is a charming attempt to make a $5.00 version of "The Day the Earth Stood Still". It's an extremely low-budgeted Sci-Fi movie from the late fifties, so this generally means there are stern scientists talking a lot of pseudo-philosophical gibberish and asking themselves way too many rhetorical questions, villainous looking military men fantasizing about weapons of mass destruction and mysterious alien forces with minds that are immeasurably superior to ours. When a spherical UFO – a gigantic golf ball actually – is discovered in a small Californian canyon community, the army wants to nuke it and a local scientist wants to study it. Meanwhile, the alien passenger sneaks out of his interstellar golf ball and begins exploring the earthly habits, rites and inhabitants. This is where our cute and cheap little B-movie rips off "The Day the Earth Stood Still", in fact, as the alien witnesses the imbecility and self-destructive nature of the human race. How come aliens get such a kick out of observing how stupid we are? Like in a few hundred of the films he starred in, John Carradine receives top-billing even though he appears all together perhaps for a whole five minutes. "The Cosmic Man" is often rather dull and doesn't contain any real action, but it certainly has good intentions and an earnest supportive cast.

Even though this film is essentially a reworking of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (hence, lacking some originality), it still is one of the better sci-fi films of the 1950s and is well worth watching. It's also far better than the paltry 4.0 rating would indicate.The film is another struggle within the human race over whether to openly embrace an alien or blow the snot out of him out of fear. On one hand, you have Dr. Sorenson (Bruce Bennett) who has a wait and see attitude--we can't act with hostility towards the alien until we know it means us harm. On the other, you have the military guys who want to exploit the space ship for military reasons and kill the alien because...well, just because! All this come to be after an odd floating sphere arrives in a rural place in the mountains. Oddly, this space craft defies gravity and just hovers--impervious to being moved in any way. They aren't sure exactly what sort of craft it is, but they are fairly sure it's unmanned because it's pretty small. Of course, since the film is called "The Cosmic Man", we know that someone (John Carradine) is inside. Interestingly, he doesn't even make an appearance until late in the film--long after the military start attacking the sphere with blowtorches and heavy equipment (to no avail).What's particularly interesting about this film is that there are no clear answers. Carradine is just visiting the planet to see what's here and when he's met with such stupidity, he decides to leave. After all, why would aliens want to deal with such a group of morons?! Well written and intelligent, this is no bug-eyed monster sort of sci-fi film. Good acting and a decent production all around.By the way, Bruce Bennett soon went on to play a character 100% different in one of his next films, "The Fiend of Dope Island"--a terrible film due to the fact that Bennett plays one of the most berserk characters in movie history! Also, if you get a chance, read Bennett's IMDb biography--it's really, really interesting and he only recently died at age 100.

It reminded me of "The Day The Earth Stood Still" but it wasn't as good. Not so scary creature and a very unusual spaceship. It has to be considered in the context of the times, which was the late 1950s. During it's day it probably was a good, scary Sci-Fi movie that gave the viewers nightmares after watching it. Over the years it's lost a lot of it's effectiveness. Consider that you are going to watch a 1959 movie. Things were different then. This movie should be considered a semi classic Sci-Fi, old fashioned drive in movie. It wasn't the best that came out of the 50s but I thought it was very enjoyable and a must see for any classic Sci-Fi viewer.