Six Days to Bellus ….

Five Days to Bellus ….

Four Days to Bellus …..         and so the tension builds as Bellus is on collision course with the Earth.

I remember this film being released when I was at junior school and recall my fascination with it at the time and maybe even now.   There was some kind of colour strip preview in the press or whatever releases they did and there was a picture of a very large planet – Bellus – coming in to collide with the earth – it certainly scared me at the time.

This was another George Pal special effects film but apparently the budget was so low that they had to use  an enlarged print when the spaceship lands in the new world and it did not look at all realistic. It should have been a good quality matte painting – Oh for a Peter Ellenshaw working on this film – we would have seen something really special and then I think the film could have been a classic.

 When Worlds Collide is a 1951 science fiction film starring Richard Derr  and Barbara Rush.     Here we have  a ninety minute adventure as new star Bellus is discovered, but found to be on a collision course with Earth.  There is though  a slight chance of  avoiding certain  destruction by building a spaceship to journey  to planet Zyra in orbit around Bellus.    Millionaire, Sydney Stanton, played by John Hoyt   funds the escape project and attempts to pull all the strings.  As they all go to board the spaceship  Dr. Cole Hendron,  played by Larry Keating  prevents Stanton along with himself from embarking.   Stanton attempts to walk in a desperate and vain effort to board as the ship blasts off.  When Worlds Collide is filmed in Technicolor.

Above – The New World

See the Trailer to When Worlds Collide on this link below :-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VXeT-yHNcFI

Barbara Rush we have already mentioned in a previous post – Harry Black. This though was one of her very first films  and she looked good in it.

Richard Derr

This film gave him perhaps his only starring role but he had acted from the early forties and continued into the eighties initially in film and then a lot of TV. He looks to have appeared in nearly all the US TV series that we used to see such as Charlies Angels, Cannon, The Outer Limits, Streets of San Fransisco, Perry Mason, The Phil Silvers Show, Starsky and Hutch, Barnaby Jones, Dallas, and Star Trek.