| Description |
The Flying Saucer (1950)
The CIA sends playboy Mike Trent to Alaska with agent Vee Langley, posing as his \"nurse,\" to investigate flying saucer sightings. At first, installed in a hunting lodge, the two play in the wilderness. But then they sight a saucer. Investigating, our heroes clash with an inept gang of Soviet spies, also after the saucer secret.
Mikel Conrad ... Mike Trent
Pat Garrison ... Vee Langley
Hantz von Teuffen ... Hans
Lester Sharpe ... Colonel Marikoff
Russell Hicks ... Hank Thorn
Frank Darien ... Matt Mitchell
Denver Pyle ... Turner
Roy Engel ... Dr. Carl Lawton
Garry Owen ... Bartender
Virginia Hewitt ... Nanette
George Baxter ... Fred Burnside
Philip Morris ... Dreamland Bartender
Robert Boon ... Barge Captain
Earle Lyon ... Alex Muller
Director: Mikel Conrad
Runtime: 69 mins
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042469/
Codecs:
Video : 673 MB, 1255 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 480*368 (4:3), XVID = XVID Mpeg-4,
Audio : 103 MB, 192 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 1 channels, 0x2000 = AC3 DVM, CBR,
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THE FLYING SAUCER is the first feature film about UFO\'s. The first screen depiction of \"flying saucers\" was in the serial BRUCE GENTRY: DARE DEVIL OF THE SKIES. Other than being a first, this film about a FBI agent sent to Alaska to find a flying saucer is pretty minor. Not much flying saucer in this film, but a lot endless shots Alaska\'s natural wonders, and scenes of FBI agent Mike Trent wandering around from one bar to another. The saucer is shown airborne for about a total of 30 seconds. There is also an interesting full scale mock up of the saucer, but it looks very different from the airborne one. Also the writers of this film seemed to think that there was always only one flying saucer that everybody was spotting back then.
One thing that disappoints a lot of people is that the saucer isn\'t even from outer space. This is not so odd considering when this movie was made. Back in 1949 about 80% of Americans thought flying saucers were real but did not automatically believe in E.T.s. Some thought they were from outer space, others thought they came from the U.S.S.R, while most thought they were American secret weapons (the Navy was often sighted as the ones who were testing them.) However in this film the subject of the flying saucer being from Russia is brought up, but no one mentions the idea of the saucer being from outer space. Also at the start of the film Mikes boss mentions that the saucer works on some totally new scientific principal. When the film wraps up, we are never told how the flying saucer works. I suspect the writers could not come up with one.
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Folks, there are no words; hyperbole fails us. This movie is so incredibly bad, so stultifyingly boring, that it has to be seen to be believed. Granted, it was made in 1950, and, granted, there obviously wasn\'t much of a budget, but really. . .! Yes, we will allow that it was, after all, one of the first films to deal with the subject of UFOs (and CIA cover-ups, and Russian hoaxes, and a Canadian connection) but, after a mildly promising start, the film plays largely as if it were funded by the Alaska Board of Tourism - ENDLESS tableaux of glaciers, and wildlife, and rivers, and more glaciers, but precious little action, and even less in the way of FX. The saucer, when FINALLY seen, looks like something out of \"Killers From Space.\" The fact that this cowflop of a film was made in 1950 doesn\'t really save it, either: both \"The Thing\" and \"The Man from Planet X\" were made right around the same time, and are far better efforts. In the case of \"The Man from Planet X\", that one was made for around $50,000.00 and was shot in six days on borrowed sets, and it was still better! In short, \"The Flying Saucer\" isn\'t just crummier than you think, it\'s crummier than you CAN think! If you really want to see early UFO films, see the above mentioned pair; don\'t - repeat, DON\'T - waste your time with \"The Flying Saucer\".
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The Flying Saucer was the first movie to deal with this subject and was one of the first sci-fi movies of the 1950\'s. Despite reading a lot of bad reviews about it, this isn\'t actually too bad.
A journalist and his \"nurse\" are sent to Alaska to investigate strange sightings of flying saucers over there. His \"nurse\" is with him because as he is undercover, he is in Alaska \"recovering from a nervous breakdown\". Not surprisingly, he falls in love with her during the movie. They make a hunting lodge as their home during their stay but the man who suppose be helping them to do odd jobs is actually a Russian spy and tries to kill the woman a couple of times. He has something to do with the saucer, which appears eventually. The spies are caught out at the end and one of them takes off in the saucer, which then explodes into thousands of little pieces.
There is some nice scenery in The Flying Saucer and the music score is quite good for a low budget movie.
The cast is mostly made up of unknowns with Mikel Conrad and Pat Garrison as the too main stars. Conrad also wrote the story and produced. He also appeared in another sci-fi B movie - Untamed Women in 1952.
Though not brilliant, The Flying Saucer is worth having in any sci-fi collection. Enjoyable.
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* According to the dates shown on two telegrams, the basic action of the film takes place mid-August 1949.
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