Shakespeare in Space

“Monsters from the Id!” cries a supporting player, as he dies. But isn’t that where all good monsters come from?

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More About

• Walter Pidgeon
• Leslie Nielsen
• Anne Francis
• Science Fiction
• Musicals

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The poor man has figured out whence cometh the peril in Forbidden Planet, which closes the Horror Movie Nights series at Paisley Violin. One of the most entertaining of Hollywood sci-fi films, this 1956 space opera from MGM is crafted with the lush color and soundstage-bound splendor of that studio’s classic musicals.

But it isn’t lightweight. The story and themes are borrowed from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, with scientist Walter Pidgeon, his sexy daughter Anne Francis, and their robot domestic, Robby, visited by a spaceship full of hunky Earthmen -- led by Leslie Nielsen, before he turned silly -- on a planet where an alien technology makes Freudian jealousies manifest as rampaging, invisible monsters. If you’ve never seen it, consider it a must.