Sci-Fi films Not Released In Australia For Reasons Unknown.
Port Sinister (1953 ). Port Sinister is an interesting film. I wasn't released in Australia for reasons unknown. It was possibly banned by the Australian censor on horror grounds or it is possible for this independently made film the Australian distribution rights were not controlled by RKO. RKO only had release rights to the film in the U.S. from 1953 until the film was re-released by Mutual Productions in 1957.
It is interesting the image on the above British quad that should have shown a threatening giant crab has been replaced by a mountain. The film was re-released under the title of Beast Of Paradise Isle on a double bill in 1957 with Creatures Of The Jungle which was the re-release title of The White Orchid.
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Some Trivia obtained from the IMDb website.
The film inspired the film Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea ( 1961 ) and the TV series Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea ( 1964 ). it was also remade as an episode of that series.
The trailer for this Allied Artists release played down the science fiction elements and made it look more like a military action film.
Could have been missed around the time that Lippert Pictures ceased operating and when a few companies were releasing some Lippert product but my feeling is nobody wished to release this film in Australia because it was so bad.
Jumped the gun. Soon.
Having some problems processing an image at present.
Project Moonbase ( 1953 ). The third of the Lippert Pictures U.S. releases not released in Australia.
The answer could be one of the following ----
Banned but no record found to confirm this.
Paramount Pictures when they obtained Australian distribution rights in the late 1950's to AA product and had a large backlog of product, the film was left out of the current and backlog of titles bought due to the large number of films that were available.
The film was rejected by Paramount Pictures as being simptly terrible. Only has a 3.4 rating score on IMDB and Leonard Maltin rated it 1 & 1/2 out of 7.
The Amazing Colossal Man ( 1957 ) and War Of The Colossal Beast ( 1958 ) were originally released in the U.S.A. by American International Pictures ( AIP ). Although theatrically released in New Zealand they never reached Australian shores. The reason for their non appearance is unknown. They were either banned, although no records have been located that show that they were, or they were just not picked up for Australian release due to their poor quality.
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The original image reinstated.
It is now established that The Atomic Submarine was distributed in New Zealand as per the following daybill image with the milder Y censorship certificate applied. This surely would rule out the film being banned in Australia one has to think.
It now certainly appears to me that the film, which would have been a Paramount release if it has been imported here, wasn't picked up for release in Australia. Allied Artists product around this time was being released in Australia by Paramount but in New Zealand by International films.
( Wil )
The above is a U.K. quad poster printed for a later very limited re-release in the U.K on the independent theatre circuits by a different film distributor than the original one. A big thank you to Paul in the U.K. for this information.
The Cosmic Man was an American science fiction thriller film released in the U.S.A. in 1959.
The film wasn't released theatrically in Australia. The reason for this isn't known. One thing I can say though that it wasn't banned here. The thinking behind this is that as seen on the above U.K. quad film poster the censorship rating is credited as being only a U (Suitable for all classification).
My thinking is that either Allied Artists didn't have the Australian film rights, or most likely that the Australian film distributor of that time Paramount Pictures just rejected the film due to it's poor quality. It is only rated 4.8/10 on IMDb'
There is a third possibility though. In the late 1950's Paramount Pictures took over the distribution rights in Australia from United Artists of the distribution here. After a number of years of very limited, then no releases by United Artists a huge backlog of AA product was available to source here by Paramount. The major problem that faced Paramount Australia was that along with their own product, and the lack of suitable available cinemas to handle this huge combination of Paramount and Allied Artists product. so a fair number of the inferior 'B' grade AA films that were available just weren't picked up for release here.
However on saying all this I am sure the answer will never be known as to why The Cosmic Man wasn't ever released here.