There’s no getting around it, for all the dated dialog and social mores, for all the bits lifted from The Tempest, MGM’s grand and glitzy film Forbidden Planet is one of the most influential science-fiction movies ever produced.

Released in 1956, right in the middle of SF Films’ golden age, Forbidden Planet is both a dazzling journey, a paean to exploration and a warning, a call to be heedful of the consequences of your actions and your technology. It is the rare science-fiction story that can so strongly and so competently strike both thematic cords.

(I am willing to entertain the notion that we are currently experiencing a second golden age of SF movies, but that would be a very recent age. While I love Star Wars I do blame it for diverting SF films into pure escapism for several decades. With the exception of just a few notable movies after Star Wars SF is always presented as adventures that generally lack in thematic punch.)

Forbidden Planet is the story of the United Planet Cruiser C-57D mission to the main sequence star Altair, investigating the fate of an earlier expedition. Ignoring warnings against landing the cruiser grounds and discovers the expedition has died leaving a sole survivor and his daughter –born on the planet and therefore technically not a survivor of the expedition. A mysterious force, the same that killed the previous expedition, reawakens after 20 years and the crew is faced with a deadly implacable force.

The production design of the film directly inspired the feel of Star Trek when it aired ten years later. While Universal was know for its monsters and Warner Brothers were known for their gritty street-level realism, MGM was a studio known for massive productions of spectacle and flare, Forbidden Planet lives up the that MGM tradition. It looks and sounds great pus it boasts a stellar cast. (Yes, all puns are intended.)

Leslie Nielsen found a second career after Airplane! taking advantage of his tremendous comic chops, but before that he was a romantic leading man and that’s the role he fills here; the daring, handsome, and inventive commander of the C-57D. Anne Francis plays his love interest, thought she is not credible as a 19 year old girl she still brings charm and delightful mixture of smarts and naiveté to the role.

Walter Pidgeon plays Dr Morbius the mysterious survivor with a dark and deadly secret.

The cast filled out by wonderful and recognizable character actors who often had careers that spanned decades after this particular film.

Forbidden Planet is a treat and if you have not seen it, this is a must view for any serious fan of the genre.