Cardboard Science: But he had glimpsed a dark swooping patch overhead, lighted by gleams of fox-fire redder than the aurora glow, and had heard a flutter of thick wings and smelled a whiff of corruption tainting the clean air

THE GIANT CLAW

1957

Directed by Fred F. Sears

Written by Samuel Newman and Paul Gangelin

Spoilers: high

Cardboard Science: Do you think you'll be able to respect a husband that probably pulled the scientific boner of all time?

KRONOS

As we briefly pause in our retrospective on the science fiction of George Pal, let's instead take a glance at something a little lower-fi: namely, Kronos, the 1957 sub-classic that must be counted as one of its decade's most successful attempts at depicting a full-scale alien apocalypse.

1957

Directed by Kurt Neumann

Written by Lawrence Goldman and Irving Block

With Jeff Morrow (Dr. Leslie Gaskell), Barbara Lawrence (Vera Hunter), George O'Hanlon (Dr. Arnold Culver), and John Emery (Dr. Hubbell Eliot)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Cardboard Science: Gill-Man or Astro-Man?

THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US

Loopy and unjustified, but at least there's some noticeable heart in the third and final chapter of the Black Lagoon trilogy, which is a lot more than you can say about the second.

1956
Directed by John Sherwood
Written by Arthur Ross
With Rex Reason (Dr. Thomas Morgan), Jeff Morrow (Dr. William Barton), Leigh Snowden (Marcia Barton), Ricou Browning (The Gill-Man), and Don Megowan (The... Lung-Man?)

Spoiler alert: high

Cardboard Science: I may be the dumbest man to ever walk the Earth

THIS ISLAND EARTH

In the aggregate, the science fiction mediocrity for all time.

1955
Directed by Joseph Newman (and, maybe, possibly, sort of... Jack Arnold)
Written by Franklin Coen and Edward G. O'Callaghan (based on the story "The Alien Machine" by Raymond F. Jones)
With Jeff Morrow (Exeter), Rex Reason (Dr. Cal Meachum), Faith Domergue (Dr. Ruth Adams), Russell Johnson (Dr. Steve Carlson), Robert Nichols (Joe Wilson), Lance Fuller (Brack), Douglas Spencer (the Monitor), Orangey (Neutron), and Regis Parton (the Mu-tant)

Spoiler alert: high