“Why you…You helium head idiot you.”
Commander Mike Halstead (Tony Russel) works on the Gamma One space station for the United Democracies Space Command (UDSC). The company is being slowly taken over by the CBM Corporation AKA “The Corporation”. One of the scientists for CBM, Dr. Nurmi (Massimo Serato) is experimenting with human organs. His aim is to create the perfect human specimen. A new breed of human. Nurmi is on the space station doing experiments. He meets and is instantly, strangely attracted to Mike’s girlfriend Lt Connie Gomez (Lisa Gastoni). He sees her as the perfect specimen.
Halstead is sent to Earth to investigate the kidnapping of dozens of important people. It appears that the kidnappers are beautiful women spies. They are each seen with a bald humanoid type man wearing sunglasses. It appears these robot-like people are from the planet Delphos. Their job is to capture and miniaturize certain people. They then take them back to Delphos for further experiments.
Whenever these robots are discovered they are programmed to disintegrate themselves using a special devise. However, one of them dies and is captured before he disintegrates. He has additional fusion grafted arms. Mike is beginning to suspect that Dr. Nurmi is behind the monstrosities. He is also afraid for Connie. The last he heard she was on vacation on the planet Delphos. Little does he know Nurmi has a bizarre plan to merge himself with Connie, thereby producing the "perfect human".
“Wild, Wild Planet” was released in 1966 and was directed by Antonio Margheriti. It is the first in what is known as the Gamma One Quadrilogy, a series of four movies by Margheriti in cooperation with MGM that take place on or around a futuristic space station, Gamma One. All four movies were made back to back in 1964 and 1965. Originally made to be ‘made for TV’ movies they were released theatrically in some countries.
The special effects are typical of what you would expect from an Italian space opera. Not to mention the idea of what “futuristic” looks like. To some it’s considered a “psychotronic film” and that may be a fair description to a certain extent, but I consider it more your basic “mad scientist” movie sub-genre than of the psychotronic sub-genre. It didn’t seem that ‘outside the box’ to me. Even the plot is not outrageous for a science fiction story. I’ve seen similar plot devises on the British TV series “The Avengers”. Unless you consider ”The Avengers” psychotronic.
It’s not a bad movie and it does enjoy a cult following. The sets were interesting, the uniforms slightly cold warish. More appropriate for a dress parade than utilitarian. As for the other futuristic costumes and hair styles, again you have that Italian flavor. All together it was your basic 60’s view of the future, Italian style. At times it may be a tad confusing, but it’s by no means boring. I enjoyed it.