IMDb meta-data is runtime of 1 hour and 23 minutes, rated 6.4 by 7,087 cinematizens.
Genre: Sy Fy.
Verdict: Old Gold.
The Skyhook program of communication and weather (sure) satellites is not going well. Eleven Air Force rockets have gone up to deploy satellites and eleven have come crashing down. Low bid contractors indeed. Yet they should work, according to sweaty Hugh in the desert southwest. Well, try, try, try again he concludes and fires up number twelve. Some budget.
En route to hit the next red button his car is buzzed by a big optical illusion. Sure. He is not a man to jump to the conclusions of his own eyes. He proceeds to the red button.
While he is thus engaged a Big Optical Illusion (BOI is code for UFO) lands at the base and blasts it into special effects unbeknownst to bunkered Hugh who only has eyes for the red button. The redoubtable Morris Ankrum is carried off by the BOI for a session of scrambled Eggheads.
While the Illusionists had tried to contact Hugh earlier when their BOI buzzed his car to arrange a meeting, his cell phone battery was dead and he didn’t get the text. So when the Illusionists landed the immediate reaction is bang! Bang! Now that rings true. Intruder! Kill! Whereas I thought maybe they came to lend Hugh some batteries. It is all hot Cold War. There is no negotiation with the Illusionists, but a rush to prepare a new and more deadly weapon. This weapon involves projecting heavy metal music at the UFOs causing them to go all hysterical. Whoops. Just made that up. Do pay attention.
The immediate response is shoot to kill.
Aside: When wondering why no aliens have contacted us, ponder that. Maybe they have been watching our historical tapes, and knowing what to expect by way of reception and so have steered well clear of this rock where the rule is shoot first and read the script later.
Back to the action! We soon discover by tapping their telephones that the Illusionists did not come for the fast food, but rather to conquer, but only after we have killed at least one, though we find out nothing about them except that they are fragile, few, and past retirement age. Are they fleeing from a world ruined by Republicans? By climate change? By Hillary Clinton? The Mendoza Line? All of the above?
Now if Sy Fy stalwart Richard Carlson had been the lead, there would have doubts, questions, very scientific head scratching, tweed jackets, debates, pipes, and – oh hum. Or if it had been John Agar, well, we would have all fallen asleep. But Hugh is a gung-ho soldier-scientist whose wife salutes him before and after. See, I did it again: made something up. The ever grumpy Hugh Marlowe was an odd choice for the hero, but he played the material well enough. He is better, however, as a sinister but cowardly villain, in say The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) or Seven Days in May (1964).
But there were four masters of the crafts at work here, the aforementioned actor, the cadaverous Morris Ankrum, Curt Siodmak is credited as writer, technical effects by wizard Ray Harryhausen, and ventriloquist Paul Frees does the narration and the alien-speak. These four all have well-earned Sy Fy credentials. Harryhausen’s flying saucers set the mould for those BOIs (UFOs) to come. Siodmak’s aliens, though undeveloped, stayed with this viewer, as did Frees’s cadence. And Morris, well, he has become an old friend.
I came across an HD coloured version on You Tube and watched it again. When reading about it, there is a rumour of a re-make with Midget Tom playing himself, an alien. That informative and reliable Finnish web site Scifist has not yet got to it, but I hope it will one of these days.
I saw it first in Lexington (KY) with cousin Don about 1956, and remember those spacesuits vividly. And, yes, I have commented on this before. See the 2 November 2017 post for an even more detailed discussion.