Rex Reason was born on 30 November 1928.
He was a handsome leading man who only worked as an actor for about a decade. He starred in his first film, Storm Over Tibet. And late in his career (but not life), he starred in two seasons of Man Without a Gun, where he played a newspaper editor in the Old West who fought bad people without violence. After that, he starred in two seasons of The Roaring 20’s, where he was again a newspaper man.
He was in a lot of westerns and war movies. But we do not remember him for these. Psychotronic fans know him for two films. And they both co-star Jeff Morrow!
The Creature Walks Among Us is the less important of these films. It is the third of the Creature from the Black Lagoon film. However, I think it is the best of the series. And it set up a fourth film, which never came.
The other psychotronic film is This Island Earth. It is a classic. And so, many people were confused when it was the featured film in Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie. That show is responsible for a lot of confusion. RiffTrax has shown that it is trivial to riff on even the best films.
If you’ve only seen the MST3K version of the film, you haven’t seen it. They cut the film from 86 minutes to roughly an hour. As I recall, they joke about the film not making sense. And they are right! When you remove one-quarter of a film, it tends to destroy the plot.
What annoys me about this is that idiots now think the film is bad. I discuss this in my article about The Mads doing Choppers.
Rex Reason is remembered primarily for his role as Dr Cal Meacham in This Island Earth. He is great in these kinds of American Hero roles that were so popular in the 1950s. But overall, he had an amazing career for one so short.
Let’s celebrate Rex Reason’s birthday by watching his best-known film!
Note that this print has an aspect ratio of 1.37:1. There is also a 1.85:1 version of the film on the Shout Factory Blu-ray. The filmmakers shot it at 1.37:1 aspect ratio with the intent to release it as widescreen.
Rex Reason via Straight 2 DVD under Fair Use. (But I believe the image is actually in the public domain.)