just watch it!

Just so...so bad

Am I Missing Something?

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Hardly worth the time to write this. Flying saucer sightings have been going on, making the headlines of major newspapers. A playboy and his girlfriend are sent to investigate. Mostly, we look at stock footage of Alaska (quite beautiful) as he tries to figure out what's with these devices. When we finally see one, it's all lumpy and disfigured, like it was hand made by some prop man. The plot really involves the Russians, who are going to use this saucer to attack the West (I guess). On the one hand, they are ruthless spies; on the other, they let people live, giving them opportunities to foil (aluminum foil) their plans. Since they are capable of killing, why tromp around a glacier when bodies could have been so easily disposed of? But that would have involved some intelligence on their part. Don't even bother to watch this.

The Flying Saucer started life as a documentary on Alaska -and indeed some of the B&W photography and scenery are not only spectacular, they are beautiful. Then, according to Hans de Meiss-Teuffen "the Big Brains in Hollywood re-wrote the story and made me, without the loss of a single foot already shot, into a villainous Russian spy". As an aside, Hans de Meiss-Teuffen was one of the great adventurers of the XXth cy, singlehanded-sailor, mining engineer, hotel owner, lion hunter, double-spy... (his "Winds of Adventure", 1953, is a wonderful read) As a grade-B movie of minimal budget, The Flying Saucer is much better than most. Continuity, that some have criticized her, is actually decent for its period (and immensely better than in the famed "Flash Gordon"); and it is much less incredible than John Wayne's "Jet Pilot". Definitely worth seeing.

As the first 'flying saucer' feature film, this was a must-see movie for a Fifties SF nut like me. Well, I have seen! I can do no better than paraphrase Michael Caine:"If I had my life to live all over again, I would do everything exactly the same - except I wouldn't see The Flying Saucer."This looks like a vanity project for its 'star', Mikel Conrad.At considerable expense, he took his cast and crew on location in Alaska and shot a lot of footage of the admittedly spectacular scenery. It must have used up most of the slim budget and boy was he determined to get value for money! At one point the 'nurse' is trying to find the hero. We follow her around a fishing village asking questions. I counted 12 different camera set ups for a sequence that ends in her not finding him at all. It seemed madness at the time, but later appears a model of concise film-making.The hero learns that the flying saucer is is hidden in a shack 'on the other side of the glacier'. He hires a sea plane to take him there. He takes off and flies over the glacier, looking around him. He spots the shack and lands. That simple little 30-second narrative bridge takes 6 minutes and at least 60 separate shots. I tried to count them (well, someone had to) but eventually gave up. He finds the saucer, returns home, is captured by the Russian agents and is immediately taken back to the hut again! This second trip takes a further 3 minutes and another dozen or so shots.As a result of all this padding, a 25 minute story is strung out to a numbing 75 minutes.I can only assume that Conrad went on location without a shooting script and just tailored the story to all the landscape footage he was accumulating. This is not movie-making.If, like me, you feel obligated to see every movie of this type ever made, then be my guest.But if you actually have a life, trust me - this is not for you.

I only looked this up on IMDb because they used a clip of this movie in a Discovery Science show called "The Real Flying Saucers" made in 2004 (I think an English Production). The show ties up all the possibilities of extra terrestrial flying saucers and shows that at first Nazi Germany, than both the USSR and the USA later, actually had invested billions in real aircraft shaped as round "saucers". It was a very eye opening show to watch and it all seemed very very plausible, that these aircraft have existed as at least prototypes. On that Discovery Science show, they use archival footage of a formally classified film from the Avro corporation showing Project Y2 or Weapons System 606A powered by 6 jet engines. It was clearly a real film and thats all the facts I need to set that monkey to rest. Maybe some day I'll see this as it sounds like the "The Flying Saucer" is more plausibly truthful than all the other saucer movies are.