IMDb meta-data is 1 hour and 13 minutes of treacle time, rated a generous 4.1 by 818 members of the producer’s extended family over the generations.
Genre: Sy Fy
Verdict: The search for intelligent life on Earth continues, with limited success.
It opens with fifteen minutes of stock footage of radar dishes, screens, technicians who are tracking a flying object, so intones a narrator. The object is making 70,000 miles an hour! It was first spotted over Alaska and then tracks down the Pacific Northwest coast (skipping British Columbia) toward Hollywood. Gulp!
In May 1953 this had to be a Red rover, and not Santa Claus! Stock-footage of F-86 Sabre-jets ascending to meet this Soviet menace! Whoa! Sabres could hit 650 mph. The Red Saucer whizzes past them before the Sabre pilots can buckle a seat belt! What to do! Fear the worst.
Then the flying object slows and drops off the screens near Santa Monica Beach. Nice place.
As this latter event occurs we cut to citizens who find radio reception has been jammed. Some of these citizens go on and on about what they wanted to listen to on the radio. And on. All that jabbering galvanises the Federal Communication Commission to action. (As if.) Its technical vans, recognised by their revolving roof-top antennas drive around Griffith Park while the crew talk to each other. A lot of driving and a lot of talking.
By this time the fraternity brothers were dozing on the sofa. ‘ Zzzzzzzing’ is a direct quotation.
Then a frazzled woman lurches in front of one of the vans and says she and her husband along with a friend were attacked by a man in a diving suit. The technicians leap into action. Yep, they talk some more, but they do radio in the alert and a call for an ambulance. Their radio can, it develops, send but not receive now, like some people. The intermittent radio trouble is well handled in this scene.
Ben Casey’s offsider working his way through medical school as a police officer arrives. Lights up. He finds the husband dead. Story is he picked up a club and swung at the Diver (Phantom to the cognoscenti) who shoved him down, fatally. Cops aren’t buying the malarky and conclude the friend killed the husband for the wife. In a touching bit of dialogue the police keep calling this friend ‘the young man’ when he looks about forty. (He is not listed in the credits so no check is possible.)
While the cops are fabricating a case against ‘the young man’ there is a break-in and fire at the Getty oil refinery. Someone was killed in the fire. But it seems it was started by accident.
At minute 27 second 43 we get the first glimpse of a figure running around the oil refinery in a onesie. This must be Phantom! About time!
The audio had to be turned up to be heard over the snores of the fraternity brothers at this point.
By now the ambulance medicos, army, police, and feds are mobilised in a one camera frame shot, squeezed together, but none of them make any connection between
1) the disappearing Red Saucer,
2) the radio interference, and
3) the Diver.
Instead they grouse about the bad coffee.
Back to the Getty oil refinery. They chase after Phantom in the diving helmet and onesie. Then poof! He goes invisible. Every producer’s dream. He strips off his onesie and helmet and voilà nothing! Instead, wirework opens and closes doors, windows, spins chairs and so. Invisible he eludes the posse. Invisible he eludes a pay-cheque.
The cops, army, medics, and Feds finally realise the obvious at minute 47 second 5 that all three events above are connected. They take the onesie and helmet to Griffith Planetarium to be analysed. Guess they want to hold it up again the stars or something. In the lab (sure) is a woman scientist with her pet dog, Venus. Pay attention because these two are the only ones with any sense. She finds the suit radioactive and dons kitchen washing-up gloves to handle it. This was the official Atomic Energy Commission line at the time. Radioactivity was like poison ivy. Don’t touch.
The helmet, however, is not hot, but its breathing apparatus has unknown gases in it. Hmm. They sit in a cramped office and talk. Talk. Talk.Talk.
Periodically Phantom returns to the lab to inhale some of the helmet gases while the crew sits next door talking. Talking. Talking. Talking. By the way, contrary to rumour one fraternity brother stayed awake and counted forty-seven cigarettes lit by the onscreen cast. During some of the talk all of them are puffing way in a cloud.
Ah ha! There is an ‘Ah Ha’ moment. They will set a trap for Phantom. They set up the Planetarium with invisible eyes on all the outside doors to give alarm when he enters. What if Phantom is already in the building is a supposition none considers. Why they do not use the helmet as bait is down to their stupidity. Into their trap wanders the elderly and annoying journalist after some cheap sensationalism. Nothing has ever changed.
Every time Phantom is present Venus the dog goes ballistic but no one pays that any attention. Yes, Phantom is searching for intelligent life on Earth and so far only the dog passes the test.
While the men smoke and talk, talk and smoke, the Dr Woman goes back to the lab to pour stuff into vials. Phantom comes in for a helmet dose. Now get this.
What is B-movie woman supposed to do at this point? Scream. Faint. Trip. Scream. Faint. Trip. Those are the choices. NOT SO HERE.
See, she keeps a cool head.
She is frightened when the helmet floats in air, but keeps calm and tries to communicate with the being! She also discovers that he becomes visible in ultra-violet light. She is a thinker. Another one passed the intelligence test. Both females, Venus and Woman, one dog and one not.
Needless to say the lads are unhappy about being shown up and to prove their manliness they set out to chase Phantom around the Griffith Planetarium for about fifteen minutes. We see repetitions of this footage five times. Then bored to death, Phantom runs out of his air and dies.
The end.
Well, it could have been worse. On the bright side, John Agar was not in it. Despite the zero budget it had some good special effects. When the Phantom carries Dr Woman off it is spooky since he is invisible. (In a black suit suit against a black matte.) When Phantom becomes partly visible under the ultra-violet light is good, too. Dick Sands who did the stunt work as the Phantom is good at running, jumping, tumbling, and falling. He does not speak and that saves him from the terrible dialogue.
One of the great moments in reasoning occurs when the talkers, conclude that because Phantom is invisible he must be silicon like glass. Tweet that. Who needs the National Science Foundation with brainwork like that.
It just ends, leaving nothing. There is no conclusion. No explanation. No expectation. No one wonders why he came. What he wanted. Where did he park the Red Saucer on Santa Monica Boulevard. Was he really a Russkie under all that white pancake make up. Nothing. Nada. Zip.
The lobby card is as erroneous as these usually are, written as they are by journalists. Phantom seems to have no power. He does not menace anyone. He was attacked by the husband and defended himself. We have no idea where he came from or why. No one checked the odometer on the saucer. Maybe he came from Outer Schenectady.
W. Lee Wilder produced and directed based on a screenplay by his son Myles Wilder. Yes they are kin of Billy Wilder. Elsewhere on this blog I have reviewed others of Lee Wilder’s oeuvre for which I did homework on the relationship to Billy. See the review of ‘Snow Creature’ (1954).
To some jaded viewers, among whom your correspondent takes a place, it seems the Widers saw ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ (1951) and set out to imitate it with a benign alien. But like someone trying to recite poetry phonetically in a foreign language, he had no idea how to intone, phrase, and colour it. Instead it is just a blurt.
The zero budget is reflected in the use of Griffith Park and the Griffith Planetarium which were readily available for filmmakers for years until the welcome mat was worn out. The cramped office scenes were shot in Wilder’s one-man office. Most of the extras were walk-ins recruited at a cattle-call.
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