The future. It is the 1980 and mankind has made its first small steps into space. A newly established moon base acts as base for all space operations.
But something is wrong - one of the station's ships has gone missing. It has probably been destroyed by something its crew described as a wandering planet. The following rumors even endanger the soon to be launched manned mars mission (now, this is a future I want to live in!).
So the Americans send out their best man, Captain Frank Chapman (Dean Fredericks, whose face I know from more old western shows than can be good), to find this "Phantom Planet" or their missing ship.
As it turns out, the rumors have been completely on the money, and after a small space walk that costs Chapman's navigator his life, his ship too collides with the asteroid everyone will continue to call a planet.
Chapman at least has the luck to survive and is soon confronted by the inhabitants of the asteroid, some very human looking aliens who just happen to be as small as the astronaut's hands. But some unscientific mumbo jumbo about differing gravitation and atmosphere of different planets brings him down to the aliens' size very fast.
Shortly after the Captain is more or less alright again, he is put on trial for harming one of their citizens, only to be found guilty and allowed to join the alien society in spite of that. Aliens, a strange lot. He may even roam the planet (now I'm using that word, too) freely, but may never return to Earth again, lest he betray the secret of his captors' existence. Additionally, he has to choose a wife out of two available girls, Liara (Coleen Gray), the daughter of the planet's leader/chieftain/whatever Sessom (Francis X. Bushman), and the mute Zetha (Dolores Faith).
Liara at once leeches onto Chapman, to the wrath of unmarried and temperamental Herron (Tony Dexter) and to Zetha's obvious regret.
During the following days Chapman learns something of the history of his new people. They were once a technologically highly developed race who grew complacent and bored with their existence. Instead of trying to achieve the Singularity, they chose to give up most of their technology, with the exception of their knowledge about gravity control and their ability to "chemically produce food". How exactly one gives up most scientific advancements, while keeping others, is never explained. I guess different parts of nature just have nothing at all to do with each other. Be that as it may, they now live a much more interesting life without paper, books, furniture, different clothes for different people and so on.
Chapman is understandably underwhelmed and neither his wish to return to his home nor the open antipathy Herron is showing him help to improve his mood.
After Herron witnesses a little sweet talk between the Captain and Zetha, in which he confesses his feelings for Zetha and that he just can't bring himself to tell Liara the truth because he is afraid to hurt her, Herron challenges him to a duel in the belief that his only hope in winning Liara back lies in the earthman's death. As it goes with things like this, Chapman wins the duel but decides to spare Herron's life. Liara's actions during and after the duel make quite clear that the person she loves most is herself and she just likes the attention of two men, so Chapman has no problems of saying "I don't love you" to her anymore.
The following night Herron shows up in the Captain's room with the offer to help him sneak back to Earth. Against all traditions, his offer his genuine.
But before the Captain can return home, a space battle against the terrible Solaroids, a "bug-eyed-monster kidnaps the damsel" scene and the return of Zetha's voice are still to come. Then at last, our hero can forsake his one true love forever and return home to be just another top pilot again.
The Phantom Planet is a surprisingly effective film, if you are willing to overlook its flaws: most unscientific science, cheap production design (especially in the interiors, space and spaceships are looking nice enough) and a shoddy BEM-suit.
Fortunately, the movie has its nice sides too. The script might be cliched, but the writers made some interesting, even successful efforts to pull the clichés together into a coherent story. The characters' motivations are developed much more believable than SF films in the late 50s and early 60s usually bothered with.
Especially Chapman may be square-jawed, but he is neither an irritating fool nor an all-knowing blow-hard, his wish to return home is all too believable. And when was the last time you saw the hero of one of these films trying not to hurt another person's feelings? Or (as happens in an early scene) admit that he is afraid? Even the obligatory "hero spares his duel opponent's life" scene works nicely, since it is underplayed and not presented as a grand gesture of a great man, but as something grounded in simple humanity. Fredericks surely was no great actor, but the way he lays his hand on Herron's shoulder when he decides not to kill him nobody could have done better.
The Phantom Planet's tight plotting is also deserving of a mention - the more B-movies I watch the more I learn to hate typical filler scenes and the happier I am with films that simply don't have any.
So I am able to forgive the film's suspect idea of marriage and its other flaws and have a fun time with it.
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