Inspired by Ernest Hemingway short story "The Killers" turned out to be quintessential film noir and marvel for any lover of the genre - everything happens in half shadows, there is exciting crime story, bad guys (well, almost everybody here is a bad guy), detectives and policemen, sexy femme fatale and enough twists and turns to keep you glued to the screen until the end.
Very young Burt Lancaster is the main protagonist here - typical film noir character, a good guy who somehow gets involved in bad company - and he dies at the very beginning of the movie. From now its up to life insurance investigator to trace the story back in flashbacks, talking to everybody who might have known Lancaster and slowly trough all these stories and memories we get more or less clear picture why was Lancaster killed and why he never even resisted his murder. Its impossible not to feel sorry for Lancaster who was basically a good guy with lots of bad luck, he never had a chance involving himself with this crowd. There is a lot of strong supporting characters, notably Vince Barnett (ex prison cellmate) and stunning Ava Gardner as gangster moll who double crosses everybody and watches Lancaster like a black spider.
"Forbidden Planet" is a highly influential SF movie from 1956 and naturally since I am big "Star Trek" fan this had a huge appeal to me since its clear where Gene Roddenberry got his inspiration from. Apparently this was first SF movie made about humans visiting another planet and first where human crew flew in a spaceship. To me it all looks very much like early episodes of "Star Trek" but of course this all has a great charm, the more plastic props and scenography, more I love it.
The biggest surprise is the main actor whom I didn't even recognized until I read this is a very young Leslie Nielsen - my all time favorite comic from "The Naked Gun" series - surely I recognized his name but thought this must only be a coincidence. Later I watched him again and true, I recognized a certain characteristics of Nielsen's acting (angry outbursts for example) but he was so young that his features were unrecognizable. In the role of Dr.Morbius is excellent, dignified Walter Pidgeon - now, him I recognized immediately and even before I saw him. Pidgeon had very strong, authoritative baritone voice that simply booms when he spoke and the first moment I heard his voice (we hear him before he comes on screen) I knew he sounds familiar. Sure enough, he was Mr.Zigfeld in "Funny girl". Interestingly enough, the cutie who plays his daughter here (Anne Francis, dressed or should we say undressed to seduce all the spaceship crew) was also in "Funny girl" later, so its fun to recognize all these people. And there is a cutest robot, called " Robby the Robot".
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