The Phantom Planet

In the “future” year of 1980, Earth ships vanish near a mysterious asteroid — and Captain Frank Chapman (Dean Fredericks) finds out why when he crash-lands on Rheton and shrinks to six inches tall. William Marshall’s black-and-white space adventure strands its astronaut among a miniature civilization of hidden people, a mute beauty named Zetha, a jealous rival, and the monstrous Solarites (including a young Richard Kiel) who want the little world destroyed. Silent-era titan Francis X. Bushman appears as the asteroid’s elder statesman. Cheap, earnest, and gloriously odd, this public-domain cult item later became an MST3K favorite — a pocket-size planetary romance that begins where other space movies end.