Essential Cinema: Edgar G. Ulmer: Prince of Poverty Row

THE MAN FROM PLANET X

Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer

USA, 1951, 1h 11min, 35mm

Essential Cinema: Edgar G. Ulmer: Prince of Poverty Row

There are no current or future screenings planned for this film.

An alien lands in the Scottish moors and is confronted by humanity at its best—and worst. This sci-fi movie is emblematic of much of director Edgar G. Ulmer’s ’50s and ’60s output—quickly and cheaply made, but shot through with Ulmer’s unique visual sense. In 35mm.

About this series:

In the mid-1980s, when a traveling retrospective of the famously obscure émigré filmmaker Edgar G. Ulmer (“King of the Bs”) was making its way across the United States, the Houston Chronicle ran a review with the apt title “Edgar G. Who?” If he was known at all, it was mainly due to his breathtaking low-budget noir DETOUR (1945). But Ulmer’s near thirty-five-year career as a director encompassed everything from a doomed entry to the Universal horror cycle, four Yiddish features, a Mexican western (Truffaut called it “a small gift from Hollywood”), a few sci-fi quickies, and other minor wonders from Poverty Row. Programmed in collaboration with Noah Isenberg, the George Christian Centennial Professor and Chair of University of Texas at Austin’s Radio-Television-Film department, and author of the critical biography “Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins.”

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