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Forbidden Planet
Sign in to save1956 science fiction movie directed by Fred M. Wilcox
OverviewAI-generated
*Forbidden Planet* is a 1956 American science fiction film directed by Fred M. Wilcox. The cast includes Leslie Nielsen, Anne Francis, Walter Pidgeon, and Warren Stevens, with Les Tremayne serving as the narrator. Screenplay credits go to Cyril Hume and Allen Adler, while George J. Folsey was the director of photography and Ferris Webster was the film editor. The production was designed by Hugh Hunt and produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
The film is based on William Shakespeare’s *The Tempest* and is set in the 23rd century. It runs for 98 minutes and was originally in English. The work has been distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Netflix, and Fandango at Home in video on demand formats. Its tagline reads, "Earthmen on a fabulous, peril-journey into outer space!"
Financially, the film had a budget of $1,900,000 and generated revenue of $3,250,000. It holds a rating of 7.5 on IMDb based on 57,260 votes, and a vote average of 7.244 from 1,058 users on TMDb. The film is categorized as a science fiction, action, adventure, and drama film.
Synthesized by Vinony from 40 facts across 4 sources: Wikidata, TMDb, IMDb, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Film · TMDB
7.2Starship C57D travels to planet Altair 4 in search of the crew of spaceship "Bellerophon," a scientific expedition that has been missing for twenty years. They find themselves unwelcome by the expedition's lone survivor and warned of destruction by an invisible force if they don't turn back immediately.
Cast
- Walter Pidgeon as Dr. Edward Morbius
- Anne Francis as Altaira Morbius
- Leslie Nielsen as Commander John J. Adams
- Warren Stevens as Lt. 'Doc' Ostrow
- Jack Kelly as Lt. Jerry Farman
- Earl Holliman as Cookie
Themes
- flying saucer
- rescue mission
- space
- alien planet
- robot
- sabotage
- mysterious death
- alien civilization
- lone survivor
- extinct race
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Key facts
- Directed by
- Fred M. Wilcox
- Screenplay by
- Cyril Hume
- Story by
- Irving Block Allen Adler
- Produced by
- Nicholas Nayfack
- Starring
- Walter Pidgeon Anne Francis Leslie Nielsen Warren Stevens Robby the Robot
- Narrated by
- Les Tremayne
- Cinematography
- George J. Folsey
- Edited by
- Ferris Webster
- Music by
- Bebe and Louis Barron
- Production company
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
- Distributed by
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
- Release dates
- March 2, 1956 ( 1956-03-02 ) (Charlotte, North Carolina)
- Running time
- 98 minutes
- Country
- United States
- Language
- English
- Budget
- $1.9 million
- Box office
- $2.7 million
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- film
- Part of
- National Film Registry
- Genre
- drama film
- Country of origin
- United States
- Original language
- English language
- Based on
- The Tempest
- Main subject
- flying saucer
- Director
- Fred M. Wilcox
- Screenwriter
- Allen Adler
- Cast member
- George D. Wallace
- Production company
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
- Cinematographer
- George J. Folsey
- Filming location
- California
- Duration
- 99
- FilmAffinity ID
- 269519
- Distribution format
- video on demand
- Image
- Forbiddenplanetposter.jpg
Show 15 more facts
- Commons category
- Forbidden Planet
- publication date
- 1957-02-05
- film editor
- Ferris Webster
- title
- Forbidden Planet
- narrator
- Les Tremayne
- set in period
- 23rd century
- production designer
- Hugh Hunt
- after a work by
- William Shakespeare
- distributed by
- Fandango at Home
- assessment
- Bechdel test
- set in environment
- fictional planet
- review score
- 80/100
- capital cost
- 1968000
- box office
- 1530000
- characters
- Robby the Robot
Sources (15)
via Wikidata · CC0
~33 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Forbidden Planet is a 1956 American science fiction film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, produced by Nicholas Nayfack and directed by Fred M. Wilcox from a script by Cyril Hume that was based on a film story by Allen Adler and Irving Block. It stars Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, and Leslie Nielsen. Shot in Eastmancolor and CinemaScope, this landmark film is considered one of the great science-fiction films of the 1950s, a precursor of contemporary science-fiction cinema. The characters and isolated setting have been compared to those in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, and the plot contains certain happenings analogous to the play, leading many to consider it a loose adaptation.
Forbidden Planet pioneered several aspects of science-fiction cinema. It was the first sci-fi film to depict humans traveling in a human-made, faster-than-light starship. It was also the first to be set entirely on a planet orbiting another star, far away from Earth and the Solar System. The Robby the Robot character is one of the first film robots that was more than just a mechanical "tin can" on legs; Robby displays a distinct personality and is an integral supporting character in the film. Outside science fiction, the film was groundbreaking as the first of any genre to use an entirely electronic musical score, courtesy of Bebe and Louis Barron.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Forbidden Planet” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.