Italian director Antonio Margheriti was approached by MGM to make four science fiction films back-to-back in 1965 and 1966 using the same sets, costumes, props and actors: War of the Planets (20 November 1965), The Wild Wild Planet (29 November 1965), War Between the Planets (21 July 1966) and The Snow Devils (17 November 1966).
War Between The Planets presents a future world of moon bases and orbiting space stations, cocktails, anti-matter bombs and astronauts soaring through black soundstage space on visible wires.
Commander Rod Jackson (Giacomo Rossi Stuart, billed here as Jack Stuart) is in charge of the Gamma One space station, tasked with finding the gravitational disturbance that’s destroying Earth’s weather patterns.
Jackson is in love with his head of communications, Lieutenant Terry Sanchez (Ombretta Colli, using the stage name Amber Collins) but his needy cat-eyed fiancee (Halina Zalewski) back on Earth happens to be the daughter of General Norton (Enzo Fiermonte).
The Gamma One crew find that the disturbance is being caused by an uninhabited red ball, 25 miles in diameter, with fields of red gelatin quicksand and craters breathing out plumes of cold steam.
Descending into a crater to plant anti-matter charges, they are attacked by white tendrils that bleed but repair themselves as soon as Jackson stops hacking at them.
Naturally, (most of) the crew escape just in time as they blow the planet up – in a spectacularly bad special effect shot.
An epilogue brimming with pathos has Commander Jackson telling the orphaned son of Capt. Emil Dubrowski (Peter Martell) – one of his crew who didn’t make it back – that his dad was responsible for “saving our Universe”.
Originally titled Il Pianeta Errante (“The Errant Planet”) in its original Italian.
Cmdr. Rod Jackson
Giacomo Rossi Stuart (as Jack Stuart) Lt. Terry Sanchez
Ombretta Colli (as Amber Collins) General Norton
Enzo Fiermonte Janet Norton
Halina Zalewska (as Alina Zalewska) Capt. Frank J. Perkinson
Goffredo Unger (as Freddy Unger) Capt. Emil Dubrowski
Peter Martell Dr Schmidt
John Bartha (as John Babtha) Lt. Peters
Marco Bogliani Lt. Tina Marley
Vera Dolen Capt. Charles Danton
Franco Ressel Narrator
Norman Rose
Descending into a crater to plant anti-matter charges, they are attacked by white tendrils that bleed but repair themselves as soon as Jackson stops hacking at them.
