7 faces of dr lao (1964)

"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
A small western town dominated by Clint Stark (Arthur O'Connell) gets a visit from the mysterious Dr. Lau (Tony Randall), who changes the town's citizens forever when they view his mysterious circus of mythical beasts.
A pleasant fantasy adventure.

the time machine (1960)

"Which three books would you have taken?"
Victorian scientist H. George Wells (Rod Taylor) is determined to prove to his sceptical friends that a time machine is feasable. In testing his machine he ends up thousands of years into the future and befriends Weena (Yvette Mimieux) of the peace loving Eloi. But this utopian society hides a dark secret, the Eloi are in fact food for the warlike Morlocks. With Weena captured, Wells determines to face the Morlocks and retrieve her.
Pal does it again, with an entertaining adventure based on the classic book.

doc savage: the man of bronze (1975)

"Have no fear! Doc Savage is here!
It's the 1930's, and Doc (Ron Ely) and his five pals, try to find Doc's father who has disappeared whilst in the wilds of South America. Someone doesn't obviously doesn't want them there, as they are attacked by 'the green death'.
A campy and comic version of the pulp novel hero. This looks and feels like a spoof of a 30's Saturday matinee serial, but unfortunately doesn't quite pull it off. Five years later Spielburg covered similar ground with Indiana Jones and we all know how successful that was.

conquest of space (1955)

A team of astronauts on an earth orbiting space station are picked to journey to Mars. They include Col. Merritt (Walter Brooke) and his son Captain Barney Merritt (Eric Fleming), a bullheaded Sgt (Mickey Shaughnessy) and the regulation stereotype crew. Everything is running
smoothly until they near Mars, when the Col begins to act strangely, spouting biblical rhetoric about the sacrelidge of man in space. This is obviously not going to end well...
Produced by George Pal this is another attempt to give a realistic impression of space station life. But due to some obvious clunky special effects, alongside a weak script, meant the film generally got panned and Pal decided against any more Sci-fi films for a while, looking
elsewhere for inspiration. Looked on now, it has a certain retro charm, as long as you can get passed the obvious bible thumping.

war of the worlds (1953)

Dr Forrester (Gene Barry), a physicist, spots a meteorite crashing to earth whilst on holiday and investigates. There he meets Sylvia (Ann Robinson), but the site is too hot to go near. When they leave we see the meteorite is actually a spacecraft, which kills the men still there. There follows an colossal battle with the army for the fate of not just America, but the earth. As mass panic sets in, Forrrester and Slyvia manage to flee to Los Angeles. All seems lost as the martians sweep all before them, as they await the end (in the most obvious of places, a church), but just before dawn the approaching Martians falter. When Forrester investigate he realises the martian is dying, of a common cold, an infection that the Martians have no resistance to.
A classic of 50's Sci-fi, in this adaption of the H G Wells novel, replacing the satire on class with a religious theme and updating it from 19th century London to 50's California. Knocks spots off the recent remake.

destination moon (1950)

An American businessman puts together a team to try and build a rocket to get to the moon, in order to beat the an unnamed foreign power, (clearly the Russians), to it. We follow the preparations and eventual journey. Taking off despite a court order prohibiting them from doing so! Once there the astronauts have to risk the return without knowing if they have enough fuel to get back.
An early example of a colour sci-fi and the only one that features an explanation of rockets and space flight, by Woody Woodpecker! This is a sci-fi that is as factually correct as it could be for the 50's, with very little in the way of fantasy. Though I must admit I lost interest in the plight of the astronauts as there was rather too much technical information and rather too little acting going on.