NOT Available on DVD: ‘Green Slime’

1968 is considered a banner year for Science fiction films with esteemed classics 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY and PLANET OF THE APES, cult items BARBARELLA and DESTROY ALL MONSTERS and prestigious adaptations THE ILLUSTRATED MAN and THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN all released. One Sci-Fi masterpiece from 1968 that’s not as well known (but should be) is the THE GREEN SLIME, an irresistibly dopey American-Japanese co-production that tries to stuff twenty pounds of cosmic crap into a ten pound bag and is fondly remembered by anyone who’s seen it. It has one of the greatest titles, title songs, and posters of all time but as of now, THE GREEN SLIME is NOT available on DVD!

The plot of THE GREEN SLIME play like a precursor (or parody) to ARMEGEDDEON and then ALIEN as a runaway asteroid, known as Flora (!), is determined to be on a collision course with earth. Rugged astronaut Jack Rankin (Robert Horton) is ordered out of retirement to command Space Station Gamma 3, an enormous ring-shaped outpost populated by a detachment of scientists and military personnel, and stop Flora before it destroys our planet. Onboard Rankin meets his old flame Lisa (Luciana Paluzzi) and her fiancée, Commander Vince Elliot (Richard Jaeckel), Rankin’s former close friend. Rankin, Elliot and the sinister Doctor Halvorsen (Ted Gunther) land a shuttle on the asteroid, depositing explosives in an attempt to nuke Flora. They succeed, but a small wad of pulsating green jelly adheres itself to Dr. Halvoson’s spacesuit and is brought back to the station unobserved. The crew celebrates with a groovy party featuring nurses in short skirts and high heels shimmying to 60’s electronic tunes, unaware that the oozy green stowaway is morphing into a deadly tentacled creature out to electrocute everyone in its path. Attempts to kill the slimy beast backfire as each drop of its blood grows into a new monster until Gamma 3 is infested with these waddling critters collectively known as… The Green Slime!!

THE GREEN SLIME was an American/Japanese co-production shot in Tokyo with a mostly American cast (extras are Japanese or played by American servicemen stationed in Japan) and a Japanese director giving the film a stilted, off-the-wall international quality. It was shot in English but crudely post-dubbed and the whole cast has English monikers regardless of their ethnicity (exotic Italian beauty Luciana Paluzzi plays…..Lisa Benson!). Square-jawed Robert Horton (a TV actor best known for starring in WAGON TRAIN) delivers a comically wooden lead performance as the arrogant and condescending Rankin. As Elliott, Richard Jaeckel seems to have more fun with his role and he makes a good space hero (Jaeckel stayed in Japan to costar in the equally absurd LATITUDE ZERO before returning to Hollywood and Oscar-nominated the next year for SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION). Luciana Paluzzi had made a splash as Bond girl Fiona Volpe in THUNDERBALL in 1965 and makes for equally sexy here. Director Kinji Fukasaku went on to make cult items MESSAGE FROM SPACE in 1978 (a gonzo STAR WARS knockoff starring Sonny Chiba that features massive sailboats in space!) and the controversial “teens- killing-teens� epic BATTLE ROYALE in 2000. THE GREEN SLIME’s toy-like special effects are hardly realistic, but there are a ton of them and most are ambitious and imaginatively designed. The spaceships look like models because they are models and the fact that they are way overlit doesn’t help. It’s the monsters themselves that make THE GREEN SLIME so memorable. Squat and lumpy, with one giant red eye surrounded by many smaller eyes, the rubbery, tentacle-waving gremlins were played by Japanese children in clumsy suits. They seem more than a bit silly today but, with their high-pitched electronic squeal, were pretty nightmarish to young audiences in 1968.

I saw THE GREEN SLIME in 1968 at the Omni Center Theatre in Atlanta Georgia with my brother and cousin and was awestruck and terrified as only a 7-year-old boy seeing a movie called THE GREEN SLIME in 1968 could be so I’ve always had a huge soft spot in my heart for this film (I was lucky enough to attend a 16mm screening at Cinema Wasteland a couple of years ago and it held up great). I mentioned three things that I think make THE GREEN SLIME so enduring. The title, THE GREEN SLIME is so perfect and unpretentious that Saturday matinee audiences in 1968 had to know exactly what was in store and I can’t imagine anyone feeling let down. Second, THE GREEN SLIME has one of the funkiest title songs in cinema history. Written by Charles Fox (who would go on to write the themes for THE LOVE BOAT and HAPPY DAYS) and accompanied by a frenzied drum beat and blaring electric guitars (someone edited the song to clips of battle scenes from the film and posted it on youtube (which is included below), THE GREEN SLIME theme is a blast. Third, the poster is my absolute favorite from the 1960’s. The bold colorful artwork features the emerald cretins in an action-packed outer space battle with flying spacemen while holding a terrified Luciana Paluzzi in a skin-tight metallic spacesuit in the foreground (an outfit like nothing she wears in the film). The poster is a throwback to the “bug-eyed monster� posters of the 1950’s and the artwork even graced the cover of “Famous Monsters of Filmland� #57 in 1969. I have an original THE GREEN SLIME three-sheet (40 x 80 inches) and it’s proudly displayed in my den along with my Resin Green Slime model kit and vintage “The Green Slime are Coming!� button.

THE GREEN SLIME was the first film ever to be featured on the cult TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000 but it was on the show’s never-aired pilot episode. MGM owns this title and I suspect they wouldn’t sell the rights to MST3K, but they did release a full-frame VHS in the 1980’s but even that is now difficult to find. I would love for MGM to release a new wide-screen transfer but for now THE GREEN SLIME is NOT available on DVD.