Supersonic Saucer

Made for the Children’s Film Foundation in 1956, seemingly on a budget of £10 2s in old money, ‘Supersonic Saucer’ only runs for 49 minutes, most of which is made up of the same footage played forwards, backwards and then, sometimes, forwards again. Extremely unsophisticated, the film looks and feels as if it were conceived and executed by children, as well as for them, making it almost impossible to stick the boot in: it’s cheap, cheerful and runs for less than an hour, so why bother being nasty?

The story takes place in a boarding school closed for the Summer holidays. There are only three children left, Rodney, the supercilious science loving son of the headmaster, and Greta and Sumac, two girls whose parents live too far away for them to go home. There’s an interesting exchange between the children that more or less sets the tone:

Rodney: What are your names again?

Greta: I’m Greta.

Sumac: I am called Sumac.

Rodney: That’s a funny name.

Sumac: It’s South American.

Rodney: Oh, I See, foreigners.     

Within minutes, a little flying saucer has turned up, landing in a nearby tree. The kids are completely unphased by this and, of course, being kids, their first instinct is not to call in the Army but to simply make friends with the alien, who they christen Meba. Ah, Meba, what a bizarre creation you are. Resembling a turd in a yashmak, all we can see of Meba is his expressive plastic eyes which, when they spin around can turn back time and, when he’s upset, which is quite often, spurt an endless stream of fat, salty tears. Meba is from Venus and has only just learned to fly. Interestingly, Meba has no saucer – he is the saucer, i.e. he can transform himself into a spaceship. It’s an interesting idea in principle, but I have no idea how it would work in practice. I expect he’d implode or something, making it a very different film, I suppose.

Despite the fact that he has mastered space travel, Meba likes the kids patronising him and treating him like some limbless puppy, so he tries to please them in any way he can. When they express a desire for cakes and sweets he flies off and gets a load of goodies. Without paying a penny. That’s right, he’s a thief as well as a foreigner. When the girls good humouredly say they’d have to rob a bank to be able afford to go home for the holidays, Meba immediately goes out and robs that bank and brings them a million quid. This is perhaps the biggest time wasting exercise as all, as we we see Meba’s long journey to the bank, the robbery, and his long return back to the school. When the kids realised what he’s done they order him to return the money immediately, cue a long journey to the bank and a long return to the school where he reveals (by telepathy, did I mention that he communicates using the power of his tiny mind?) that it was too risky to return the money, but he’ll do it tomorrow, thereby wasting even more time later on when we follow his long journey to the bank, etc. In actual fact,  Meba is a massive pain in the posterior, and an appalling liability. When they say they are cold, for instance, he sets fire to the curtains, so he’s not only a thief and a foreigner, he’s a bloody menace.

Eventually, Meba gets kidnapped by a group of criminal masterminds with numbers for names, and this leads to a terribly boring last quarter of an hour as the kids and the villains chase each other around an old house. It all works out in the end, of course, as Meba starts another fire, a fantastic idea in a house full of people, including children who are supposed to be his friends.  As I say, a bloody menace. The crooks are caught, the kids get a reward, the girls use the money to go home and, after an emotional scene, Meba flies back to Venus, pausing only to steal the family silver and set fire to the school before he does so, the thieving little firebug bastard.

Highly enjoyable, especially as the print I saw made it look like it was made about a thousand years ago. If you dispute the truth of that last statement, by the way, please don't write in, I know full well that cinema was only invented in Tudor times. By the Duke of Wellington.

Island Of The Burning Damned

‘Night Of The Big Heat’ was known as ‘Island Of The Burning Damned’ in the USA, a ridiculously hyperbolic title for what is, unfortunately, a terribly tedious film.

Set on the remote Orkney Isle of Fara (actually uninhabited since the sixties), the premise is quite intriguing: the island is experiencing an incredible heat wave which has put all the phones out of order, killed all the sheep and left all the men with enormous sweat patches. That sort of weather is unusual enough for Scotland, of course, but it’s absolutely unheard of in November.

Stupefied from the heat, the villagers mainly gather around the local pub and bicker with each other. Peter Cushing is there, inexplicably wearing a jacket that looks like it’s just had a bucket of water thrown over (take it off, Peter, just take it off). Visiting rude twat scientist Christopher Lee is up to something strange, but is too rude and twattish to let the islanders in on it. The pub landlord (Patrick Allen, always good value) is also a writer, and his life is complicated by the arrival of his ex-lover, who is posing as his secretary and spends most of her time exposing parts of herself to him. As if it wasn’t bloody hot enough. It doesn't sound a lot on paper, but I had high hopes for it.

From here on in, however, the film very, very, very slowly degenerates into something extremely dull indeed. There are half a dozen deaths and, ultimately, a dynamite attack on an extraterrestial race who resemble rocks with lights in them but it’s all done at such a draggy pace that even the supposedly exciting climax is like watching the proverbial pigment grow parched. In the end,  it starts to rain and the hot rocks, having travelled thousands of light years to take over our world, are killed by it. Yes, that’s right, aliens who can be killed by rain decided to start their invasion of Earth in Scotland. Idiots.

From the same crazy fools who brought us the magnificently titled ‘Island of Terror’, ‘Night of The Big Heat’ has no particular real reason to be so dull, it just is. Perhaps the temperature got to them all.

Some notes on Patrick Allen:

Allen is a proper old school actor. He’s not particularly good at the dramatic stuff, but he has a wonderful, sonorous voice and a very expressive physiognomy. His straight face is so straight it’s almost funny, which is why he keeps it mobile. I never believe that he believes it, he's just glad to be there. In this film, there’s a scene where he’s driving along and he just seems full of childlike joy, as if he can’t quite believe that someone is paying him to kiss girls and attack aliens and pretend to be driving along. There’s no method for Patrick, his motivation is that it’s his job, and it's fun. He specialises in capable, rough hewn types who ladies like and men respect, the sort of man who can tie knots, rig up a generator, make a boat out of a fallen tree and smoke a hundred cigarettes and kill a dozen Germans before breakfast, all whilst wearing extremely tight trousers. I miss him.

Night Of The Big Heat

Building A Human

We've (alright, I've) already had some fun with World Of Wax, but here's some next level shit from Peter Serafinowicz and Robert Popper.

It kind of, sort of pisses on my pommes frites in terms of the other posts I had planned but, you know what, it tastes like vinegar. On the pissy chips, I mean. I love it.

Unseen Things

‘Unearthly Stranger’ is a short, sharp, smart science fiction thriller from 1964. In it, the world’s scientists are close to a breakthrough on space travel – not by rocket, but by harnessing the power of the human mind, a sort of intergalactic astral projection. That’s the theory, anyway, and it’s an interesting one, although every time anyone gets near to cracking the formula they die from a cerebral haemorrhage.

Will British scientist Dr. Mark Davidson (John Neville) finally find the answer, or will he be too distracted by gorgeous new wife, Julie? On the subject of Julie, why does she frighten children, or not need oven gloves to touch white hot casserole dishes?  And why does she never blink? The answer may or may not surprise you, but it’s extremely well done, and the conclusion is supremely unnerving.

An unsung gem, ‘Unearthly Stranger’ really is genuinely very good – tense, atmospheric and, most of all, intelligent. It certainly made me look at my wife in a new light.

Unearthly Stranger

Know Your Enemy

So, what do these 'UFO' aliens look like? Well, they're humanoid, wear plastic contact lenses to protect their eyes from the liquid based atmosphere they use to travel across the universe (the same liquid based atmosphere that temporarily turns their faces green), oh, and they wear hugely kinky red pvc bondage suits festooned in chains around the nipples, knees and crotch. No-one on Earth is safe.

Be There When

'The Earth Dies Screaming' is a real favourite of mine, another little semi-precious stone from Freddie Francis. Taking a cue (and some footage) from 'Village of The Damned', it starts off with everyone falling unconscious with the ensuing chaos of crashing planes and vehicles. Unlike Midwich, however, the people aren't asleep, they're dead, victims of a gas attack from an unknown enemy.

It's a great opening, and although the rest of the film struggles to match it, the film moves swiftly and sensibly through the actions a handful of survivors take in order to try and work out what the hell is going on and what happens next, a situation complicated by the appearance of pitiless robot killing machines, radio controlled corpses and, ultimately, the small matter of the survival of the human race, or at least the handful left in a small village in the home counties.

The Earth Dies Screaming

Shock By Incredible Shock

'The Strange World Of Planet X' ('Cosmic Monsters' in the US) is a lot of fun. When a nutty scientist (played by the superbly named Alec Mango) invents a machine which produces evil magnetic rays it not only turns the spiders and insects in the area into massive, human hungry monsters, but attracts the attention of advanced lifeforms from another planet who pop down to Earth to tell us to cut it out, stop messing around, leave it.

Sort of 'The Day The Earth Stood Still' if it had been filmed in Hertfordshire on a tenth of the budget, it's occasionally on late night terrestrial TV, and would be on more if I had anything to do with it (I don't, so please send your angry letters elsewhere).

The Strange World of Planet X