Genre:
sci-fi, Adventure
Distributor:
101 Films
Rating:U
Running Time:
102 Minutes
Director:
William Witney
Cast:
Charles Bronson, Vincent Price, Henry Hull
Buy:Master Of The World [DVD]
Master of the World is a vintage piece of AIP B-Movie filmmaking. It came out in 1961 and is based on some novels by the great Jules Verne. Like many of AIP films, it also stars Vincent Price as Captain Robur. Price’s career was in a slump after some strong work in the 40s and 50s in mostly Horror and Noir films. Price would experience a nice period of success due to the Roger Corman Edgar Allan Poe films of the 60s which were also made for AIP.
It’s interesting that Master of the World came out around the same time as Karel Zeman’s The Fabulous World of Jules Verne: both films are about a mad inventor who wants to conquer the world. When he wrote the novels that were the basis of these films were writing about a fear of totalitarianism and this was in the 1900s.
However Master of the World is just another fun campy sci-fi film from the early 60s. Vincent Price even in his most scene chewing performance he gives them a level of gravitas and Master of the World is no exception and he is clearly have a ball as usual. Charles Bronson also co-stars as US Government agent who after being abducted by Captain Robur refuses to escape even giving opportunities cause he must defeat the madness of Robur’s plans.
Overall it’s worth checking out and is a perfect film for a lazy Sunday afternoon and it has some lovely matte paintings like most AIP films. Notably Richard Matheson most famous for writing the novel of I Am Legend wrote the screenplay for Master of the World and it’s a perfectly fine B=Movie screenplay but compared to his work on the Poe films it’s insubstantial.
★★★
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