Directed by Fred M. Wilcox
[with Leslie Nielsen, Anne Francis, Walter Pidgeon!]

To me, the best Science Fiction movie ever made. Kitch but represents the perfection in classical Science Fiction; seminal film displaying all the (naive... or not so) 1950s enthousiasm for science and 'progress'... before the 'postmodern' attitude!
With an out-of-this-world "Electronic Tonalities" soundtrack (by Louis and Bebe Barron); the first all-electronic score for a motion picture! and a script loosely based on Shakespeare's "the Tempest".

Interstellar flights, robots, extinct advanced alien civilisation, machines to control physical reality with mental power...

Forbidden Planet @ SF filmsite
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049223

Science Fiction: transcendentalism of magic and religion, in an attempt to reconcile man with the unknown (Vivian Sobchack).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction_film

note: Leslie Nielsen ... yes, 'the' Leslie Nielson! (aged ~30) plays Commander John J. Adams!