Alicia
I love this movie so much
SunnyHello
Nice effects though.
Fairaher
The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
Secondof5
I've just had a quick look through the reviews for this classic 50's sci-fi flick just in case someone had already covered the point I wanted to make. Having found no references to it I will press on. It seems obvious to me that Gerry Anderson drew inspiration from this film when he created his puppet TV shows. The launch system for the rocketship was used in Fireball XL5 and the landing sequence on Zyra is classic Thunderbirds. A great little film even if the science makes no sense whatsoever. Must have been quite gripping in a darkened cinema in 1952. Good special effects and a colourful new world. As for it being a white world in the film, well, it was a white world back then. I don't suppose they had room for a couple of maids and a shoe-shine boy never mind any pesky redskins.
classicsoncall
There were some great science fiction movies coming out of the Fifties, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) and "Forbidden Planet" (1956) are ones that immediately come to mind. Contrary to what a host of reviewers on this board have to say, I don't think this was one of them. With a title like "When Worlds Collide", I expected a bit more colliding in the movie than actually occurred. Most of the story had to do with preparatory work to get ready for the eventual destruction of Earth by a runaway star and it's orbiting planet, or vice versa as the case may be. Inserted into the picture was a romantic triangle of sorts that managed to work itself out over the course of the story, but it's not something I'm interested in watching a sci-fi flick. Don't get me wrong, the movie isn't terrible by any means, for example it doesn't approach "First Spaceship on Venus" territory. But when you have a film that conjures up an image of destruction on a massive scale it ought to deliver something along those lines. If only the script had used the word 'azimuth' in any of the scientific calculations coming out of the differential analyzer, I could have thrown in a bonus point in my rating of the picture. Instead, Dr. Tony Drake (Peter Hansen) had this weird patch of brown in the back of his otherwise full head of black hair. Never mind, those two items cross each other out.
BA_Harrison
South African astronomer Dr. Emery Bronson (Hayden Rorke) discovers that a far-flung star, Bellus, and Zyra, the planet that orbits it, are on a direct course for our solar system, arriving in less than a year. Zyra will pass close enough to the Earth to cause massive tidal waves and catastrophic earthquakes, but Bellus will destroy our planet completely. With funding from several wealthy businessmen, a team of scientists led by Dr. Cole Hendron (Larry Keating) set about constructing a Space Ark, a rocket-ship capable of ferrying a small group of lucky survivors to Zyra before the Bellus crashes into the Earth. As the deadline approaches, plucky airplane pilot David Randall (Richard Derr) falls for Hendon's beautiful daughter Joyce (Barbara Rush), much to the consternation of her current beau Dr. Tony Drake (Peter Hansen).With its blend of cheesy emotional drama, silly scientific conjecture, and spectacular cataclysmic disaster, When World's Collide is the epitome of '50s pulp sci-fi cinema and also the template for many an apocalyptic disaster flick. The formulaic relationship between Dave Randall and Joyce impedes the action a little too much, but when the time comes for the proverbial to hit the fan, the film definitely delivers, with special effects laden set-pieces that still hold up well today (and which deservedly won the film an Oscar) and a particularly great-looking spacecraft, The Space Ark: typically '50s in fashion, with sleek, windowless, silver fuselage and stubby wings. The film also benefits from a memorable villain—malicious, wheelchair-bound multi-millionaire Sydney Stanton (played with relish by John Hoyt).A lame shot of Zyra's landscape (a flat painted backdrop) ends matters on a slightly bum note, but it's the journey, not the destination, that makes this film so much fun.
Don Barrett
How can you even accept this as science fiction when there is no science. A star entering the solar system would be noticeable long before it passed the orbit of Pluto. As it comes closer and closer to Earth the temperature rise would mean life would be impossible on our planet. The jump then to an unknown planet circling the star is insane, since according to the film, the planet is just an easy jaunt away. Thus it too has been reduced to molten lava,This is an early disaster movie. If you're looking for science fiction you won't find it. I can't understand so many positive reviews. They must have been desperate to see the movie. Next time I recommend "Radar Men from the Moon"
