When Leslie Nielsen passed away in 2010, most of the obituaries led with his later career as a comic actor, when his masterful deadpan delivery turned him into the unlikely star of "Airplane!" and the "Naked Gun" trilogy. But in a previous life, the Canadian was more renowned for playing it straight, that familiar baritone more likely to be utilized in serious roles than the pursuit of laughs.
Seventy years ago this month, he sought out strange new worlds as a proto-Captain Kirk in sci-fi classic "Forbidden Planet". But while laughs are in short supply on the alien world of Altair IV, the influential 1956 blockbuster surely ranks among the finest movies in Nielsen's filmography — and don't call it Shirley.
