RETRO SCI-FI - SPACE PROBE TAURUS (1965)

Añadido: 2026-06-08

[00:00:00]Hello, welcome back.

[00:00:02]I don't know about you, but sometimes I find it very difficult to decide what to spend my time on, whether I'm going to read a book or go for a walk, or watch television, or watch a film. If I'm sitting at home over a rainy afternoon or over an evening, like most of us, I sort of think, "Well, I think I'll watch a film or watch a TV show."

[00:00:22]Like me, you're probably following several TV shows. I've got about six on the go at the moment that I'm watching.

[00:00:27]Plus, I'm watching retro shows and films for this channel. Sometimes you sit there and think, "What am I going to watch tonight?"

[00:00:34]>> [sighs] >> Now, obviously, I've got an enormous attachment to physical media. I've got thousands of DVDs, and Blu-rays, and 4Ks. And sometimes I feel I'm strangled by choice. You're sort of paralyzed a bit. You think, "I don't know what to watch." So, sometimes you'll just fire up the TV and just I'll take a chance on something. I'll take a punt. That's how it was yesterday afternoon. The heatwave of last week is is in the rearview mirror. It's gray and miserable and wet again.

[00:00:59]And I thought I would just watch something completely random. So, I picked up the TV remote, flicked onto Prime Video, and I saw a film which I noticed had appeared on Amazon a couple of weeks ago.

[00:01:14]A creaky old science fiction film, and I do like a creaky old science fiction film. Because very often, you look at these films and they actually, these are quite sort of important in the history of science fiction, in the development of science fiction. They're sort of little stopping off points in the development of the genre. Anyway, that's how I ended up watching Space Probe Taurus.

[00:01:32]Let me tell you about that.

[00:01:50]Hello, welcome back to my world of stuff. My name is Paul Martin. Yes, it is a welcome back, because I haven't put up a video since last Sunday. Apologies for that. I've just been I would say busy, but I've just been a little bit lazy. I am preparing things.

[00:02:02]Um things are in preparation, which does involve watching old episodes and researching things. So, there's lots of things boiling away in my noggin which are coming up on the channel soon. But, I've just had a few quiet days chilling a little bit, really. I've been out and about. I've had a couple of social engagements and various family things that are ongoing which some of you may know about.

[00:02:23]But, I'm back. I'm back. So, I've got a lot of stuff hopefully coming up in the next few weeks. But, I decided to watch this rather odd 1965 film called Space Probe Taurus, which I discovered on Amazon a couple of weeks ago, and it cropped up again yesterday as a seven when I was scrolling to find something to watch.

[00:02:38]And I thought I would give it a look.

[00:02:40]Now, I'm talking about it today not because it's a particularly good film, because it's not particularly good. It's not terrible. I've seen worse.

[00:02:46]But, because there are things in it which are quite interesting in the context of when this film was made. Now, you look at this film and you think, "Oh, this is some late '50s." It's got that sort of slightly creaky look about it. But, it's actually made in 1965. And that sort of startled me when I thought, "Well, this was probably released around the same time as Lost in Space was debuting on ABC in America." And I have to say Lost in Space, from a production point of view, looks a lot more spectacular and professional than this film, which is, you know, you know, for all intents and purposes, a B movie.

[00:03:23]It also debuted, of course, a year before Star Trek appeared on television.

[00:03:27]And again, that was in full color with much more lavish special effects. Again, a much bigger budget.

[00:03:33]But, it's interesting to posit this film which has sort of through lines that you can sort of connect it to Lost in Space.

[00:03:41]You connect it to to Star Trek. You can connect it back to things like Forbidden Planet and Destination Moon and so on.

[00:03:50]Because it's very much that type of film, but made on clearly a very small budget. It does have a small cast and its special effects, despite the fact that contemporary critics were saying how awe-inspiring and staggering the special effects were when they 60 years on and they they're not. But it's hard to imagine sometimes when we watch these old films and TV shows how audiences, of course, this was the standard of what was available at the time. They didn't have CGI, they didn't have massive model sequences. These were films shot on low budgets with effects which are terrible, but are very much of their time. So, what is this film? What the hell is this film you're all banging on about today, Paul? Well, as I said, it's called Space Probe Taurus and it was released by American International Pictures in 1965. It's written and directed by Leonard Katzman. That's a name that might ring a bell to you. Now, he went on to huge acclaim and success in the 1970s when he took over as the showrunner of Dallas, which uh those of us again of a certain age, as I keep saying on this channel, will remember the phenomenon of Dallas in the '70s and in the '80s, this this hugely lavish, big-budget, opulent, primetime soap opera series that begat several others in the same genre like Dynasty, Knots Landing, Falcon Crest, all these big shows about rich people in their massive mansions having affairs and driving fast cars and big business deals. I was never into those sorts of shows. But Leonard Katzman was smack in the middle of that when he was involved with Dallas. Earlier on in his career, incidentally, he worked as an assistant director for his uncle, Hollywood producer Sam Katzman, and he worked on many adventure serials that uh I thought sort of quite popular, things like the Superman serial in 1948, Batman and Robin in 1949, The Great Adventures of Captain Kidd. He was involved in in a lot of those sorts of things. He went on to work on all sorts of TV shows in the '60s and into the '70s, but interestingly, this particular film, Space Probe Taurus, which is sometimes known as Space Monster for no apparent reason, was his only feature film directing credit. This is very much a space opera adventure in the style of Star Trek, in the style of Forbidden Planet. It certainly fits in that space race scenario that was quite popular in the 1960s. Kennedy had already said that we'd have a man on the moon by the end of the '60s. Now, I think reinvigorated people's interest in space adventure stories. And this film, low-budget as it is, has some quite interesting ideas and it has some forward-thinking ideas and then occasionally it seems quite prehistoric.

[00:06:30]We're in the late 20th century and crewed missions into outer space have become routine.

[00:06:35]As the film starts, a spaceship called Faith 1 has requested that it's immediately destroyed as it's been contaminated by an infectious gas, leaving all the crew dead except for its commander.

[00:06:48]The mission's aborted, the spaceship is destroyed, but we're now in the year 2000, imagine that, and a new spaceship is being sent into space, the Hope 1, which has a new propulsion technology.

[00:06:58]Its crew sets off into space in search of new civilizations and new worlds for humanity to potentially colonize.

[00:07:06]There's a crew of four aboard the spaceship. There's the piloting commanding officer, Colonel Hank Stevens, played by James Brown, not that one.

[00:07:14]There's three scientists, Dr. John Andros, ladies' man Bains Barron, Dr. Paul Martin, played by Russ Bender, no smirking, and Dr. Lisa Wayne, played by Francine York.

[00:07:26]Now, this is the first point of note here in that this spaceship has a crew of four and one of them is a woman.

[00:07:32]That in itself is quite unusual and quite forward-thinking, I suppose.

[00:07:37]That's slightly devalued a little bit later on in the film.

[00:07:40]It quickly becomes apparent that Colonel Stevens doesn't really want this woman aboard the mission. He says at the beginning of the film, "This is not a place for women. This is man's work.

[00:07:48]Space travel is man's work." But to be fair, Dr. Lisa Wayne, she puts him in his place and uh she gives as good as she gets. So, she's actually quite a strong, powerful, and independently minded female character. Doesn't put up with that sort of sexism and that sort of misogyny. She calls people out on it.

[00:08:06]She doesn't call it sexism. She doesn't call it misogyny cuz those words weren't common currency at the time. But she certainly stands up for herself and as the mission's main scientist, she's invaluable on the ship. And a lot of the dialogue about her is about how good-looking she is and how nice it is to have an attractive woman on board.

[00:08:24]Beyond all that, there is proper science fiction elements to this story because on the trip they come across an unknown spacecraft.

[00:08:34]Earth control, that they're in constant communication with, instructs them to go and investigate. Dr. Andros and Colonel Stevens board the spaceship and they're attacked by a grotesque alien. It's an interesting piece of makeup. Um the thing's got a sort of a melted sort of head and a a strange mouth. It attacks them and they're forced to shoot it. Radiation levels aboard this unidentified and apparently abandoned spaceship start to rise. So, Stevens sets a bomb to destroy it and heads back to their ship. Their ship is then bombarded by extremely unconvincing-looking meteorites and the ship is forced to land in the ocean of an Earth-like moon that they're in the vicinity of. Stevens apologizes for his sexist remarks and sort of makes a play for Lisa. And um in a slightly uncomfortable sequence, he sort of forces himself upon her.

[00:09:24]Luckily, she does not resist his advances. She quite likes him, too, and they sort of make an agreement that they'll hook up when they get back to Earth. The ship is incapacitated at the bottom of the sea and suddenly it's surrounded by giant crabs. This is quite nice because it's a model of the spaceship in water with real-life crabs surrounding it. And sort of works quite well, actually. It's quite an interesting visual. The crew decide to test the atmosphere to see if the air is breathable, which it is. Dr. Andros then volunteers to go and scout the nearest land mass. Whilst he's in the water, he's attacked by a sea monster. This, to be honest, looks like the Creature from the Black Lagoon costume. It's a man in a fish costume which attacks him. But he makes landfall and finds that the planet's surface appears to be perfectly habitable. He tries to return to the ship, but he's attacked by the creature again. This time, he's injured, but he does confirm that the planet can support human life and plants can grow on the planet's surface.

[00:10:18]The crew then confirms this to Earth Control. They name the planet Andros 1 after their fallen compatriot. And then they head back to the safety of Earth.

[00:10:27]The end.

[00:10:28]It's an odd little film. It really is an odd little film. But I sort of found it quite enjoyable. And as I said, the effects are what they are. It's quite clearly a very small model spaceship moving very slowly against a sort of starry backdrop. This is not CGI. This is not Gerry Anderson-style special effects. It's very, very simplistic stuff. But as I said, it I did find it amusing that a lot of the critics at the time were effusive about the incredible special effects. Which perhaps in 1965 people would have been genuinely sort of impressed by this stuff. But we look at it now all these years later and the acid. It is what it is. It's a cheap, sort of low-budget film. But there's a lot of interesting stuff. As I said, I like the dynamic of all the characters aren't particularly well developed. It is quite forward-thinking to have a woman playing a major part of the crew.

[00:11:15]The set design is quite good. The spaceship interior is quite cramped. But there's lots of sort of clanking metal and the slowly sliding doors and hatches. So it looks like a a proper solid spaceship.

[00:11:28]The use of the crabs is quite amusing.

[00:11:30]Although you do have to wonder in sequences where they um send out sort of force field to shock the crabs. The crabs are visibly sort of jumping about. You do wonder what was done to the crabs on set. It also demonstrates what I think is probably quite an early example of product placement. There are a couple of sequences focusing on clocks on the wall of uh I think it's Earth Control Space Center which have a Bulova logo on them. They apparently are uh quite well-known brand of clock um watchmakers. I think they're still around today. So, whether they contributed to the budget or sponsored the film, but they're up there in black and white and it's hard to imagine that they're there for any other reason than to put the name of Bulova up on the screen. But, I quite enjoyed this. It's about 80 minutes. It sort of rattles along. It It does have these sort of saggy attempts uh sort of slightly slow romances that you often got in these 50s films. I've talked about these before again about these middle-aged men leering over and poring at younger women.

[00:12:28]But, to be fair Francine York put in a good performance as a strong-willed woman. She isn't there to scream and shriek and call for help.

[00:12:35]She's you know, an intelligent scientist who's part of this crew and earned her place on the crew and it's quite interesting.

[00:12:42]The scenes where the commander apologizes for the comments he's made in the past and makes it clear that he does value her place on the ship.

[00:12:51]So, I think if you are having an interest in early sort of science fiction films and I call them early films. We're in well into the 60s by now.

[00:12:59]It is a bit of a throwback to those films of the 50s certainly in terms of its visuals and its production values because it's clearly a low-budget effort. So, all in all I quite enjoyed watching Space Probe Taurus because it does hang its hats alongside the likes of Lost in Space and Star Trek and all those adventuring space series that would come afterwards. It's a one-off space adventure story, a space opera story. And whilst the characters are thin and the drama itself is quite thin, I mean, they go into space, they have a couple of encounters, and then they head home. So, the stakes aren't hugely high, but it's quite nice to look at despite its low budget. It's full of good intentions, and it's not a bad way to spend 80-odd minutes. So, it's called Space Probe Taurus. It's on Amazon Prime or Prime Video now, and it's worth a look if you share my interest in that era of science fiction. I do love those 50s films that had that naivety of people traveling in space wearing simplistic space costumes, and as they do in this film, sitting in comfy chairs.

[00:14:04]You know, they they don't have space helmets and that's how they go into space. It's quite a nice sequence where they go across to the alien spaceship, and they go in and out of an airlock, and there's some quite nice use of models and matte shots and so on.

[00:14:17]But, I quite like the naivety of these films, and I think it's quite interesting even as late as 1965 when people started to become a bit savvy about space travel. You know, the space race was on. I think it's interesting that it still has this slightly cheesy naivety to it. It's It's not a bad little film, and I think you might enjoy it. I'm going to give Space Probe Taurus a six out of 10. And as I said, it's on Prime Video if you want to take a look at it.

[00:14:42]Right, thank you for watching. Hope you enjoyed this video. It is nice to be back. I'll be back soon with some more stuff. If you are new here, if you've just stumbled across this bloke talking about this very old creaky film, why not think of liking and subscribing to the channel? I'd be marvelous. Very easy to do.

[00:14:56]You can keep up to date with everything on the channel. You can take a look back at the significant archive of material trailing in my wake. Right, I'll see you soon. Until I do, keep checking this stuff.

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