Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This
Speaker 1: is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today
Speaker 1: we're going to be taking a look at a nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty four science fiction movie called Devil Girl from Mars,
Speaker 1: a movie about people who are obsessed with liquor, who
Speaker 1: in fact are in many cases even named after liquors,
Speaker 1: and who are gather in a rural inn in Scotland
Speaker 1: to be attacked by an evil Martian boss lady who
Speaker 1: wants to kidnap and dominate Scottish men. Yes, that's right,
Speaker 1: fans of Weird How Cinema may feel an inkling of
Speaker 1: of a memory that this is in fact the second
Speaker 1: movie we've done with this exact plot, the plot of
Speaker 1: women from another planet within our Solar system are running
Speaker 1: out of men and must come to Earth to steal
Speaker 1: our precious earth hunks. Uh. The other one was the
Speaker 1: lighthearted Mexican romantic musical horror comedy Ship of Monsters from
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty and that one was such a delight I
Speaker 1: still remember that so fondly. I think Devil Girl from
Speaker 1: Mars is also a delight, but in a very different way.
Speaker 1: Ship of Monsters is uh is clever, spunky, charming, intentionally funny,
Speaker 1: and made with this infectious sense of whimsy. Devil Girl
Speaker 1: from Mars is the exact opposite. It is made hilarious
Speaker 1: by virtue of its absurd self seriousness. Yeah. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is not a lighthearted musical romp uh that it's It's
Speaker 1: still a lot of fun and has some great design
Speaker 1: work in it, because that was one of the things
Speaker 1: we loved about about about the Ship of Monsters has
Speaker 1: some great monster designs, some great costumes, and we we
Speaker 1: have we have some of that going on in Devil
Speaker 1: Girl from Mars as well. But also there is no
Speaker 1: character and Devil Girl from Mars like Lolo Gonzales and
Speaker 1: Ship of Monsters you know, with the twinkle in his
Speaker 1: eye and the funny songs and all that. No, this
Speaker 1: is a movie mostly about men who are very serious
Speaker 1: about staying on Earth. Yeah. And none of the male
Speaker 1: performers are actually that interesting, either in their in their
Speaker 1: careers or or in their performances here at least I
Speaker 1: didn't find them so. But the but, but the female
Speaker 1: performers are pretty great. Uh. The titular devil girl from Mars,
Speaker 1: I think is clearly the star of the show. My
Speaker 1: initial reaction to this when I started watching it. I
Speaker 1: got about twenty minutes in and I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't know if this is all that great. Maybe this
Speaker 1: movie is really going to be kind of a drag.
Speaker 1: But then the moment the Martian shows up, the movie
Speaker 1: kicks into high gear immediately. Yeah, I agree that that
Speaker 1: you warned me about the first twenty minutes, and the
Speaker 1: first twenty minutes of this film are indeed quite slow. Um,
Speaker 1: and that are not all that fantastic. So um yeah,
Speaker 1: so definitely know that going into the film. But we
Speaker 1: mentioned Scottish, uh as much as anything is purely a
Speaker 1: Scottish film, I guess this is kind of our first
Speaker 1: Scottish film on Weird House Cinema, right, I can't think
Speaker 1: of another one. And it's also it's not incidentally Scottish
Speaker 1: is not just like made by Scott's. This is very
Speaker 1: much set in Scotland, right right. I think you can
Speaker 1: you can maybe get into the production credits and say like, well,
Speaker 1: it's more basically a British production basically in production. But yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of Scottish talent involved in this picture and
Speaker 1: said in Scotland right. Uh. This film also has a
Speaker 1: very interesting indirect role in the history of science fiction
Speaker 1: literature because it was apparently an early point of inspiration,
Speaker 1: a sort of anti inspiration, for the great science fiction
Speaker 1: author Octavia Butler. I found a transcript of a talk
Speaker 1: she delivered. It m I t in about the role
Speaker 1: of media like movies and TV in the history of
Speaker 1: sci fi um and she she goes over a bunch
Speaker 1: of different topics in the speech, but one of the
Speaker 1: first things she does is talk about seeing this movie
Speaker 1: when she was a kid. So I want to read
Speaker 1: her quote from the speech. She says, it's impossible to
Speaker 1: begin to talk about myself in the media without going
Speaker 1: back to how I wound up writing science fiction, and
Speaker 1: that is by watching a terrible movie. The movie was
Speaker 1: called Devil Girl from Mars, and I saw it when
Speaker 1: I was about twelve years old, and it changed my life.
Speaker 1: It was one of those old nineteen fifties movies in
Speaker 1: which the beautiful Martian woman arrives on Earth to announce
Speaker 1: that all of the Martian men have died off and
Speaker 1: there were a bunch of man hungry women up there
Speaker 1: and the earthmen don't want to go. And as I
Speaker 1: was watching this film, I had a series of revelations.
Speaker 1: The first was that geez, I can write a better
Speaker 1: story than that, And then I thought, gee, anybody can
Speaker 1: write a better story than that. And my third thought
Speaker 1: was the clincher, somebody got paid for writing that awful story.
Speaker 1: So I was often writing, and a year later I
Speaker 1: was busy submitting terrible pieces of fiction to innocent magazines.
Speaker 1: I found this story so beautiful. Yeah, it's a that's fun.
Speaker 1: I wasn't aware of this connection. And uh and and indeed,
Speaker 1: this is essentially I think one of the things that
Speaker 1: I've always enjoyed about films of this nature. Not that
Speaker 1: I mean there have been times where I've been inspired
Speaker 1: to write something based on on on a on a
Speaker 1: less than stellar plot in a film or something, but
Speaker 1: more often than not, it's just like you're watching a film.
Speaker 1: There are spaces in it, spaces that yes that it's
Speaker 1: not only like could this be improved, but what if
Speaker 1: this world was improved? And so there there's this like
Speaker 1: there's this film, there's this skeleton within the film, and
Speaker 1: then you sort of apply the meat to that skeleton
Speaker 1: with your own imagination, either in a in a product
Speaker 1: based um creative endeavor, or just in the mindscape of
Speaker 1: enjoying the film totally. I I have long been of
Speaker 1: the opinion that if you're trying to study a creative
Speaker 1: art you can learn just as much or even more
Speaker 1: by studying bad examples of that art form as you
Speaker 1: can from studying good examples. Like when you see the
Speaker 1: bad Ones, it gives you a kind of analytical confidence.
Speaker 1: You can understand how when when things aren't working. Now,
Speaker 1: there's a lot that does work in this film, though
Speaker 1: at least from a from a design standpoint. Uh As
Speaker 1: we'll get into there's there's there's there's at least one
Speaker 1: amazing costume, there's a there's some cool sets, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a cool robot, and and there are some times
Speaker 1: where there's a lot of technobabble, as we'll discuss. But occasionally,
Speaker 1: as our alien visitor is talking about conditions back home
Speaker 1: and laying down a little um world building, some of
Speaker 1: it does, you know, kind of get you get at
Speaker 1: least got my mind rolling. It's like, I wonder what
Speaker 1: this this gender war was, Like? How did all the
Speaker 1: Martian men die, you know, and you know that they're
Speaker 1: not they're they're not feeling on all the details for you,
Speaker 1: but they're giving you, like a few visuals, some some
Speaker 1: sites and sounds, some ideas, and then your brain kind
Speaker 1: of sketches in the rest of it. And uh, and
Speaker 1: that's that's something I always enjoy about a film like
Speaker 1: this totally. I was actually I was tempted to start
Speaker 1: asking genuinely interested questions about the War of the Sexes
Speaker 1: that took place on Mars. I was like, well, where
Speaker 1: they're like where they're like people on Mars who fell
Speaker 1: in love and they were like traitors to their to
Speaker 1: their side in the War of the Sexes? That I
Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah, it raises a lot of questions you
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't think too literally about at all. I know
Speaker 1: that this isn't the only work of fiction to to
Speaker 1: contemplate such a thing, so I guess, you know, metaphorically
Speaker 1: at least it Uh, it's it's useful in um in fiction.
Speaker 1: You know that this plot differs somewhat from the premise
Speaker 1: of Ship of Monsters and Ship of Monsters the Aliens
Speaker 1: or one of the aliens. It comes from Venus and
Speaker 1: the problem is that on Venus, the men all destroyed
Speaker 1: each other with atomic wars. So so the men they
Speaker 1: got nuclear weapons and they killed all the other men.
Speaker 1: So Venus has no men left, so it was an
Speaker 1: intra sex dispute. The men killed each other on on Venus.
Speaker 1: In this movie, it is that the women of Mars
Speaker 1: went to war with the men of Mars and killed them.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's significant anyway. Maybe not. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess she is supposed to have sort of a
Speaker 1: black widow kind of vibe to her. In fact, there
Speaker 1: is this part rather clumsily where one of the child
Speaker 1: the child characters what's his name, Tommy, Tommy, Yes, Tommy's like,
Speaker 1: you were like that spider and that my dad sees
Speaker 1: in the barn or something like that, you know, basically saying, oh,
Speaker 1: you're like a black widow spider, and it's kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's yes, that's part of what they're going for with
Speaker 1: the black costume, and you know this, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of a trope and a stereotype of like a feminine
Speaker 1: power in films like this. Yeah, I think the character
Speaker 1: is written in a way that is supposed to strike
Speaker 1: terror in the hearts of a nineteen fifties male in
Speaker 1: the way that she is at least I think the
Speaker 1: way she's supposed to be received is as like very
Speaker 1: beautiful but also very like cold and rational and calculatingly evil. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's definitely portrayed in a way that is I
Speaker 1: would say, um what sexually ahead of her time? Um
Speaker 1: Like I was reading about this this film in um
Speaker 1: in Michael Weldon's Sucotronic books that summarizes this, he writes, quote,
Speaker 1: the alien herself is a real vision in boots, black tights,
Speaker 1: padded shoulders cape and a shiny black skull cap. The
Speaker 1: stuffy British males actually want to stay in England, which
Speaker 1: is great, though not in England. They are in Scotland.
Speaker 1: I guess a couple of them are from England and
Speaker 1: stuck in Scotland and others are from Scotland. But whatever
Speaker 1: the case. Yeah, they for some reason do not want
Speaker 1: to return to Mars with her and become part of
Speaker 1: like a captive earthling breeding program. Right. But then, I
Speaker 1: mean I was also thinking this whole time. I was like, like,
Speaker 1: if they were excited to go, they would get to
Speaker 1: Mars and they'd find out that their participation in the
Speaker 1: breeding program involves being like hooked up in a tank
Speaker 1: somewhere and having their brain removed or something. Um So,
Speaker 1: which would I think would have been fitting? That would
Speaker 1: have been a nice um like. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that would be a maybe be a nineties outer limits ending. Oh,
Speaker 1: that would be a good twist if like the character
Speaker 1: who goes as very like over eager young man um.
Speaker 1: But I was thinking the other twist given that like
Speaker 1: they didn't the Martians didn't realize Earth was gonna have
Speaker 1: a thick atmosphere, so when they got here, you know,
Speaker 1: they had trouble landing. It makes me think, well, what
Speaker 1: if they get the Earthlings back to Mars and they
Speaker 1: don't realize that Earthlings need to breathe oxygen, so as
Speaker 1: soon as they get there, it's just suffocation. We gotta
Speaker 1: go back for more. Now, I think we've already done
Speaker 1: the elevator pitch, so maybe we can skip that. But
Speaker 1: we've got to hear some trailer audio. All right, let's
Speaker 1: do it. We saw this with our own eyes, and
Speaker 1: object the like of which we had never seen before.
Speaker 1: A frightening, strange sheep descending from outer space with relentless putts.
Speaker 1: Where did it come from? And God? Did it want
Speaker 1: to the Us? How I've ever seen before? Hellon? Would
Speaker 1: you mean hello? Hello? It's like something from row flat
Speaker 1: to do not try to follow me. You cannot get
Speaker 1: help around it. Yes, I've drawn an invisible walls through
Speaker 1: which no one may pass. Here is a news reporter
Speaker 1: with a world shattering storm, a girl trying to escape
Speaker 1: from her posts, the scientist trapped in spite of his knowledge.
Speaker 1: And here also is the barmaid hiding a murderers secret,
Speaker 1: a murderer with a life already off it, and introducing
Speaker 1: the devil girl from Mars herself. Got back on, fireful,
Speaker 1: get back, shoot one shoot alright, alright, sounds pretty good.
Speaker 1: Let's see. So there are a bunch of places you
Speaker 1: can watch this one. I think I just streamed it
Speaker 1: on Amazon. Yeah, I I rented it through through Prime.
Speaker 1: You can stream or buy it wherever you get your
Speaker 1: digital movies. It also looks like you can stream it
Speaker 1: um via film Movement uh flicks fling uh some other places.
Speaker 1: And I should also point out that there have been
Speaker 1: some basic physical releases as well, but also Bridget and
Speaker 1: Mary Joe covered it on riff tracks, so I haven't
Speaker 1: actually experienced their riff of the film, but I've I've
Speaker 1: very much enjoyed Bridget and Mary Joe's riffing in the past,
Speaker 1: so I bet they do a good job with this one.
Speaker 1: There's a there's all, there's a lot of stuff to
Speaker 1: to have fun with here. Yeah, I've got to watch
Speaker 1: that now. All right, Well, let's get into the various humans,
Speaker 1: mostly Scottish humans, involved in the creation of this picture, alright.
Speaker 1: Starting at the top, we have director David McDonald born
Speaker 1: nineteen o four and died in nineteen eighty three, Scottish
Speaker 1: born director who at one point worked under Cecil B.
Speaker 1: De Mill in the US as a production assistant. This
Speaker 1: would have been like the late nineteen twenties and I
Speaker 1: guess early thirties, uh, basically an apprenticeship. Before returning back
Speaker 1: to the UK. He worked with the Crown Film Unit
Speaker 1: during World War Two to produce morale boosting pictures. And
Speaker 1: I've seen this film referred to as a career low point. Uh.
Speaker 1: And certainly he seems to have maybe been more successful
Speaker 1: during his lifetime with various other film and TV projects,
Speaker 1: most of which I'm not familiar with. I don't think
Speaker 1: he did much in the way of sci fi or
Speaker 1: horror outside of this film. For instance, his most noteworthy
Speaker 1: films seem to have been ninety seven, The Brothers, ninety eight,
Speaker 1: Christopher Columbus in the nine seven Swashbuckler, The Moonraker, The Moonraker. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: no connection or at least um, I don't know. Maybe
Speaker 1: maybe Moonraker has something to do with the plot of
Speaker 1: this fifty seven Swashbuckler. I'm not sure. So when I
Speaker 1: was watching the credits for this movie, one of the
Speaker 1: weirdest things I noticed was the credit indicating that this
Speaker 1: is somehow based on a play for the stage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was weird. This was it was similar to something
Speaker 1: we encountered with Dr X. Right, yeah, but in this one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you you have the credit that reads, uh like the
Speaker 1: credit for a play based on the play by John C.
Speaker 1: Mather and James Eastwood. And then James Eastwood also has
Speaker 1: a screenplay credit, which, because at first one I was
Speaker 1: looking at just how it was listed on IMDb, I
Speaker 1: was like, well, maybe they say play, but they mean screenplay. No,
Speaker 1: it seems more more clear that this was a play.
Speaker 1: And then it was adapted into a screenplay. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. This is Matther's only film credit. Eastwood
Speaker 1: also worked on the screenplay for such films as nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty five The Case of the Red Monkey in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty six is Beyond Mombassa, which has Christopher Lee in
Speaker 1: it and the young Christopher Lee. But it started seemingly
Speaker 1: mostly just a shirtless Cornell Wild and then also Donna Reed.
Speaker 1: Oh but let's not bury the lead. If there is
Speaker 1: one reason to watch this movie, it is our villain
Speaker 1: played by Patricia Lafawn. That's right, she plays Naya. This
Speaker 1: is our martian visitor. Lafon lived nineteen nineteen through And yeah, this, uh,
Speaker 1: this is a this is a really fun role of
Speaker 1: our vamping space lord here. And it's fitting because her
Speaker 1: biggest film role outside of this, uh and I guess,
Speaker 1: probably being fair, probably her biggest screen role period was
Speaker 1: playing Imparius Pompeia in MGM Sword and Sandal blockbuster Quo
Speaker 1: Vadis from nineteen fifty one. That was a film that
Speaker 1: had Robert Taylor, uh Peter Houston off in it, and
Speaker 1: also an uncredited role as a chariot driver. We have
Speaker 1: Christopher Lee. Christopher Lee is just in the background, creeping around,
Speaker 1: uncredited with a goatee and sometimes credited in one number
Speaker 1: of pictures from this era. Uh, this movie. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's primarily about Nero, but it's Nero is
Speaker 1: a major character in an Emperor Nero And I think
Speaker 1: she plays a Queen of Rome. Is that right? Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: she's queenly. You can look up footage and stills from it.
Speaker 1: She's in that. She's decked out in gold and its
Speaker 1: elaborate hair do. Uh. And but she has that let
Speaker 1: look on her face. She's got that smirk and those eyes.
Speaker 1: And I do have to say, like, if you look
Speaker 1: up images from Devil Girl from Mars, there are probably
Speaker 1: any of her performances. Yes, uh, stunning outfit, stunning screen presence,
Speaker 1: but you're missing it. You're missing out on all the
Speaker 1: nuances if you don't see her alive in the scene.
Speaker 1: Because her her sneer has a life all its own.
Speaker 1: She's using her her eyebrows in very expressive ways. It's
Speaker 1: a it's it's a wonderful performance. Yeah, I mean in
Speaker 1: some ways you would say it's in a it's a
Speaker 1: very emotionally flat performance, like she's supposed to play like
Speaker 1: a very like unfeeling like a cold, imperious, unfeeling creature.
Speaker 1: But she is very expressive in like the way she
Speaker 1: raises her eyebrows at the pathetic attempts at heroism by
Speaker 1: earth men. Yeah, it's kind of like sometimes you hear
Speaker 1: a criticism of a villain roll and say, well, this
Speaker 1: is a real mustache twirling villain roll, meaning that yes,
Speaker 1: it's leaning into a whole bunch of stereotypes and and
Speaker 1: tropes for regarding you know, the particular classic cinematic villain
Speaker 1: and this over the top evil. Yeah. Yeah, and this
Speaker 1: is very much similar case. But the thing is when
Speaker 1: a mustache is is twirl just right on screen, Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's satisfying. So this is definitely a performance that satisfies. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is a pencil thin, eyebrow twirling role. Yes. So.
Speaker 1: Lafon also appeared in twenty three Paces to Baker Street
Speaker 1: in fifty six that had And Johnson and Estelle Winwood
Speaker 1: in it. She was an actor of stage and screen,
Speaker 1: and she also seems to have had some connections to
Speaker 1: the London, Paris, New York fashion world. I love her
Speaker 1: every time she she It's like, um, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like Pucci. It's like every time Naya was not on screen,
Speaker 1: character should be asking where is Naya? When is she
Speaker 1: coming back? I felt the same way. Yeah, alright, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna mention some of these male performers, though again they're
Speaker 1: the least interesting part about the film. For the most part.
Speaker 1: You have Hugh McDermott playing Michael, a journalist. Uh this
Speaker 1: actor who of nineteen o six seventy two, Scottish actor
Speaker 1: also known for Pimpernell's Smith from forty one and The
Speaker 1: Flying Swan from Not familiar with either of those pictures.
Speaker 1: He plays a loudmouth journalist who I think is supposed
Speaker 1: to be likable, but he is not. He comes off
Speaker 1: as an absolutely insufferable jerk. Yeah. But hey, now we
Speaker 1: have another of the female players in this film, and
Speaker 1: so it's a really good one. We have Hazel Court
Speaker 1: playing Ellen, a fashion model. You know, I haven't introduced
Speaker 1: this concept yet, but the beginning of this movie is
Speaker 1: sort of like the prologue to the Canterbury Tales, where
Speaker 1: it's just a gathering of all of these randos into
Speaker 1: an inn somewhere and finding out all about like, why
Speaker 1: is this person here? Oh, it's a surprise that they
Speaker 1: showed up and she she is also like sort of
Speaker 1: an odd puzzle piece amongst all the others here. She's
Speaker 1: like a a a fancy London fashion model who's all
Speaker 1: glitz and glam. She drinks tomato juice notably, and people
Speaker 1: repeatedly point this out throughout the movie. In fact, I
Speaker 1: think they even refer to her sometimes as tomato juice girl.
Speaker 1: And I think she's meant to be taken in in
Speaker 1: the situation of the film. Is sort of a gym
Speaker 1: amongst the rough pebbles. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a it's a fun it's a fun performance. I
Speaker 1: feel like she she brings a lot of life and
Speaker 1: character into this into this role, um probably more than
Speaker 1: was necessary, and also in a way that lets you,
Speaker 1: it gives you a hint of what's to come, because
Speaker 1: uh British actor here, but also essentially a horror queen
Speaker 1: of the late fifties early sixties. She'd go on to
Speaker 1: become a star of Hammer horror films, and she also
Speaker 1: worked with the likes of Roger Corman. Her credits include
Speaker 1: the Curse of Frankenstein, from seven, The Mask of the
Speaker 1: Red Death from sixty four, The Man Who Could Cheat
Speaker 1: Death in ninety nine, Dr Blood's Coffin in sixty one
Speaker 1: and also ninety three is the Raven. On TV, she
Speaker 1: appeared on both The Twilight Zone and Thriller, and I
Speaker 1: suspect we'll discuss her once again in an upcoming Halloween
Speaker 1: selection for Weird House Cinema. Her final film was The
Speaker 1: Final Conflict, and which she had basically a cameo. But
Speaker 1: this was the This was the OMEN picture that had
Speaker 1: Sam Neil playing a grown up Damien. Oh, okay, it's
Speaker 1: called The Final Conflict, but it's all it's the OMEN three, right,
Speaker 1: It's like the OMEN three colon the Final Conflict. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or sometimes I think it's just called The Final Conflict.
Speaker 1: I don't know. You're right, Yeah, it's both. I think
Speaker 1: the demonic Sam Neil becomes President of the United States,
Speaker 1: I think something like that. I don't. I don't think
Speaker 1: I ever saw that, and I think I only saw
Speaker 1: the first one. Yeah, all right, but but she's not
Speaker 1: the only exciting of female presence in the picture. We
Speaker 1: also have Adrian Corey, who plays Doris, a barmaid. Uh So,
Speaker 1: Corey lived through two thousand and sixteen. Scottish born actor
Speaker 1: known for her roles, probably best known for roles in
Speaker 1: Doctor Shivago and A Clockwork Orange, along with such films
Speaker 1: as nineteen sixty five A Study in Terror. This is
Speaker 1: a film that had John Neville as Sherlock Holmes taking
Speaker 1: on Jack the Ripper. And then she's also in a
Speaker 1: film that I know you've you've seen, but but I haven't.
Speaker 1: I remember you talking about this Mad House starring Vincent
Speaker 1: Price and Peter Cushen. Looking this up, I don't know
Speaker 1: have I seen this? Maybe you haven't seen it. Maybe,
Speaker 1: but if I said I've seen it, I don't remember
Speaker 1: seeing it now, Okay, well maybe maybe we just will
Speaker 1: see it in the future at some point. But Corey
Speaker 1: was also in the fun Hammer Space Romp Moon zero
Speaker 1: two from in a film from seventy two called Vampire
Speaker 1: Circus that I don't know much about, but with a
Speaker 1: title like Vampire Circus, you know there's got to be
Speaker 1: something interesting in there. I would say that both Hazel
Speaker 1: Court and Adrian Corey do more with the roles they
Speaker 1: have in this movie than is actually there on the page. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they both like clearly these are these are two actors
Speaker 1: who would go on to have much bigger roles and
Speaker 1: bigger pictures, and you can see why. Oh you know,
Speaker 1: I would also actually say that about mainly because this
Speaker 1: is just a really underwritten movie except for the just, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a delicious weirdness of all the scenes where
Speaker 1: Naya is explaining our home planet and their and their
Speaker 1: plans and stuff. But other than that, it's it's the
Speaker 1: characters are kind of underwritten. But the guy who plays
Speaker 1: the Professor also does a little bit more with the
Speaker 1: role than you might have expected. Yeah, he's played by
Speaker 1: an actor by the name of I think I'm saying
Speaker 1: his last name. I could be wrong, Joseph tom Alty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I thought. Tom Alty. He lived nineteen Northern
Speaker 1: Irish novelist, playwright and character actor, and he was he
Speaker 1: was in at least I don't know the extent of
Speaker 1: these roles, but he is credited as having appeared in
Speaker 1: Tonight to Remember, I believe that's a Titanic movie in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty six. Is Moby Dick. So he plays Professor Hennessy. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's right, um, and he had I think despite the
Speaker 1: fact that the movie is all really all Naya. The
Speaker 1: line that Rachel and I kept quoting back and forth
Speaker 1: at each other is one of his lines, the part
Speaker 1: where he says, I am a scientist. I believe what
Speaker 1: my brain tells me to believe. Oh that's that's not
Speaker 1: that's not how it works. I love it. I also
Speaker 1: believe my brain tells me to believe. I really have
Speaker 1: no choice. Alright, let's see another I'm not including all
Speaker 1: of the because here at least the halfs another male.
Speaker 1: Way too many characters in this movie. Yeah, but there
Speaker 1: is another one by the name of David, who is
Speaker 1: a handy man, and he's played by James Edmond. James
Speaker 1: Edmond was a Canadian actor, probably best known for this film,
Speaker 1: but he was also in Black Christmas alongside. It's one
Speaker 1: kind of forgets that that had a pretty pretty good
Speaker 1: cast Black Christmas. It had Olivia Hussey, it had cre Delay,
Speaker 1: Margot Kidder and John Saxon. I saw it many years ago.
Speaker 1: I remember it did not leave a good impression. But
Speaker 1: now it's kind of a kind of a nasty film,
Speaker 1: as I recall. But there's no argument with that cast.
Speaker 1: That's a good cast, all right. On the music front
Speaker 1: Edwin asked Lee did the music. British composer of worked
Speaker 1: in a lot of British action TV shows such as
Speaker 1: The Saint. That's probably his his what he's most known for.
Speaker 1: He also did music for The Hammer adaptation of The
Speaker 1: Phantom of the Opera from sixty two starring Herbert lom
Speaker 1: and a Jack the Ripper TV movie starring Boris Karloff. Now,
Speaker 1: one name that caught my attention, uh from the credits
Speaker 1: for the wrong reason was it said the Patricia A.
Speaker 1: Fonds costume was by Ronald Cobb, and I was like
Speaker 1: Ron Cobb like from Alien and Raiders of the Lost Ark. No,
Speaker 1: it is a different ron Cobb, but also a second
Speaker 1: excellent ron cop the this world has at least two
Speaker 1: genius Ron Cobs in it. Yeah, this was a lot
Speaker 1: of fun to dive into because initially, when I did
Speaker 1: the scan of the people involved, I saw that credit too,
Speaker 1: and I saw this guy, Ronald Cobb, and I saw
Speaker 1: that he had no other film credits, so I thought, well,
Speaker 1: maybe it's just a one off, but it's worth mentioning,
Speaker 1: and because the costume is great and clearly as one
Speaker 1: of the selling points of the whole picture. But looking
Speaker 1: into it a bit more more. Yeah, this is a
Speaker 1: Ronald Cobb who lived nineteen oh seven through nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 1: and um this guy worked primarily in theater and especially
Speaker 1: in cabaret during that this time period. UM I ran
Speaker 1: across some of his watercolors for various costumes that he
Speaker 1: designed over the years, several of which seem to be
Speaker 1: in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. UM
Speaker 1: I included a link here for you, Joe, and also
Speaker 1: include these these links in the blog post I do
Speaker 1: for this at sam muta music dot com. I didn't
Speaker 1: find anything that looked like a sketch that he had
Speaker 1: put together for Devil Girls specifically, but oh wow, there's
Speaker 1: some really wild, imaginative, dark and ahead of their time
Speaker 1: I think kind of designs that he put together for
Speaker 1: these costumes. Right, So these he has a lot of
Speaker 1: costume designs for, like it appears to be burlesque clubs
Speaker 1: of some kind in in London in like the sixties
Speaker 1: and seventies. But they are not just your your standards
Speaker 1: EXE outfits. They are weird. Like one is kind of
Speaker 1: grim Reaper themed with like a big gallows and I
Speaker 1: don't even know what it has bats and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's another one that has this like a flag with
Speaker 1: a pentagram on it, like this really wild stuff that
Speaker 1: seemed that you know, you wouldn't expect to be emerging
Speaker 1: from this time period necessary land Less year, you know,
Speaker 1: really into I guess too, you know less costume design
Speaker 1: of the period. Uh there's also a headdress that has
Speaker 1: something that looks like a like a kind of like
Speaker 1: a muppet goblin on top of it. It's really really cool,
Speaker 1: kind of almost it also looks almost like a camera.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's weird. I can't really put it
Speaker 1: all together. But you can find all of these images
Speaker 1: online and the collection of the the Victorian Album Museum.
Speaker 1: There are also some images apparently he he did some
Speaker 1: of his designs for Murray's Club in Soho back in
Speaker 1: the day, and so if you go to the website
Speaker 1: for Murray's Club they have some of these watercolors as
Speaker 1: well for for other designs that he did. Some of
Speaker 1: these are not as weird as the ones we're describing here,
Speaker 1: but they're still pretty interesting. Now that the costume that
Speaker 1: that that Nia has on in this picture, it's not
Speaker 1: nearly as um uh as revealing as these various cabaret designs.
Speaker 1: But but still you can see, you can see some
Speaker 1: of the connections to this world, you know, like that's
Speaker 1: why it is perhaps a little more um alluring than
Speaker 1: than what you would normally see going on with costuming
Speaker 1: in pictures from this time period. No, the Devil Girl
Speaker 1: from Mars is dressed kind of like a cross between um,
Speaker 1: the the Astronauts in Planet of the Vampires and Batman,
Speaker 1: but with a burlesque twist. Yeah, now I was. I
Speaker 1: read that writer John Mather referenced earlier later claimed in
Speaker 1: an interview that the suit was actually constructed by John Sutcliffe,
Speaker 1: a British fashion and fetish designer and photographer who worked
Speaker 1: a lot with leather and rubber and PVC, so lots
Speaker 1: of like cats suits and gas masks. However, I couldn't
Speaker 1: find anything of anything firm about his connection to this film,
Speaker 1: and there do seem to be some misconceptions about film
Speaker 1: projects that he is sometimes uh said to have been
Speaker 1: involved in. For instance, I think sometimes it's been said
Speaker 1: that he designed the cats suit that him appeal we
Speaker 1: are wears in the Avengers. Uh, that isn't doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to be the case. But he did design the cats
Speaker 1: suit that marry Anne Faithful wears in The Girl on
Speaker 1: a Motorcycle, and I think that inspired the cats suit
Speaker 1: worn by him appeal. Uh So, I don't know where
Speaker 1: the truth lies and all of that. It seems like
Speaker 1: maybe it's a situation where Cobb designs it and then
Speaker 1: they're like, well, somebody needs to build this thing, and
Speaker 1: someone's like, well, I know this guy named John. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's really into this stuff. He can make it come
Speaker 1: to life. M hmm, all right, well, are you ready
Speaker 1: to talk about the plot. Let's dive into the first
Speaker 1: twenty minutes of The Devil Girl from Mars. Really, I
Speaker 1: feel like the first twenty minutes of this movie is
Speaker 1: going to be more were fun to discuss than to watch.
Speaker 1: And then and then it's a flip side once and
Speaker 1: I shows up starts with the bank. Yeah yeah, well
Speaker 1: he starts with big Ben. I mean, how could you
Speaker 1: deny that? We see that, you know, there's like a
Speaker 1: title card a London Films International release, and then uh
Speaker 1: we see an airplane coasting through the clouds, then a
Speaker 1: whistling sound growing higher and pitch, and then boom, plane
Speaker 1: explodes in a stupendous fireball and we see the title
Speaker 1: It's Devil Girl from Mars in block letters. Now, there
Speaker 1: were several things I thought were funny about the credits.
Speaker 1: There was seeing the name Ron Cobb, even though it
Speaker 1: was a different one. There was seeing that this was
Speaker 1: based on a play. But then the other funny thing
Speaker 1: that caught my attention is the producer credit screen. The
Speaker 1: producers get their own screen, and the screen makes it
Speaker 1: look like we're supposed to already know who the producers are.
Speaker 1: It's as produced by the Danziggers. And then it's got
Speaker 1: two little signatures, like in handwriting Edward J. Danziger and
Speaker 1: what does that say Harry Lee Danziger. I have no
Speaker 1: idea who that those people are, but like it presents
Speaker 1: it as if they're like the Osmond's or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I looked at it into them briefly, and they
Speaker 1: apparently were very active producers at the time, American born
Speaker 1: brothers who produced many British films and TV shows in
Speaker 1: the fifties and sixties. I'm not sure most of the
Speaker 1: titles there there they were involved with really resonated beyond
Speaker 1: their time. So I think it's it's unless you're really
Speaker 1: into pictures of this time period, you probably don't know
Speaker 1: who the Dan Figgers are. Devil Girl seems to be
Speaker 1: one of the best remembered productions from everything they put out.
Speaker 1: For example, along with perhaps the film, the only film
Speaker 1: that maybe it is a little more famous than this
Speaker 1: one would be the nineteen fifty six sci fi movie
Speaker 1: Satellite in the Sky. This one had Kirian Moore in it,
Speaker 1: who many out there may remember as the actor who
Speaker 1: played Pony in Darby Ogill and the Little People. He
Speaker 1: was also in Crack in the World and Invasion of
Speaker 1: the Triffids. I haven't seen any of that. So oh
Speaker 1: you haven't seen Darby o Gil. No, oh, it's a
Speaker 1: fun one. When in St. Patty's Day rolls back around,
Speaker 1: you should you should watch that one, Okay, all right? Well,
Speaker 1: after the credits wrap up, we established the setting of
Speaker 1: the movie, which is the Bonnie Charlie. It is a
Speaker 1: rustic country in nestled upon the Scottish more supposed to
Speaker 1: be somewhere in Inverness Shire, which is up in the Highlands,
Speaker 1: and it's said to beat wintertime, so it's cold and
Speaker 1: this is a you know, a lonely cozy little country
Speaker 1: house and inn. And the first thing we hear is
Speaker 1: a radio going. So we we go inside and the
Speaker 1: radio is saying, this is the BBC Home Service. Here
Speaker 1: is the news. It was announced by the Home Office
Speaker 1: today that a that the mysterious noise heard over a
Speaker 1: lonely part of Inverness Shire yesterday was caused by a
Speaker 1: supposed meteor falling to Earth. And here we meet a
Speaker 1: couple of characters. We meet Tommy the annoying kid, and
Speaker 1: we meet Doris the barmaid. And of course she is
Speaker 1: going to be very busy in this movie because a
Speaker 1: major theme of Devil Girl from Mars is needing a drink.
Speaker 1: And granted, the characters in this film are put in
Speaker 1: exceptional circumstances, but it's still Their intake of scotch suggests
Speaker 1: a daily, regular intake of scotch that seems a bit
Speaker 1: beyond what I would be comfortable with. Well, yeah, and
Speaker 1: the the excessive intake of scotch begins long before any
Speaker 1: aliens appear on the same right, Yeah, they're already hard
Speaker 1: drinking before anything supernatural or out of this world occurs.
Speaker 1: So you know, the radio is blabberant on with exposition
Speaker 1: about an unidentified white aircraft seen floating in the sky
Speaker 1: over the Hebrides, and Tony the Kid is like, OI,
Speaker 1: what's a meteor? And Doris says, I don't know, but
Speaker 1: you know, let's say good job to the meteor for
Speaker 1: not landing on us. And then here comes Mrs Jamison,
Speaker 1: who is Tommy's aunt, and she is the proprietor of
Speaker 1: the inn, and she kept reminding me of Maggie Smith.
Speaker 1: But her main characteristics are being suspicious of strangers, which
Speaker 1: is a very good quality for an innkeeper, and h
Speaker 1: skull holding her husband for having his seventeen dram of Scotch.
Speaker 1: I can't remember if I've already flagged this or not.
Speaker 1: Maybe I have, but I just want to emphasize again
Speaker 1: the owners of the inn are named Jamison and the
Speaker 1: husband is apparently named Jamie Jamieson. That'd be like if
Speaker 1: you had a character named Jack Jack Danielson and Jack
Speaker 1: Jack Danielson or I think the professor's character name is
Speaker 1: is Henny Hennessy. So anyway, Tommy the Kid, he's sent
Speaker 1: to bed and Doris and Mrs Jamison discussed the meteor.
Speaker 1: Doris thinks it might be romantic that it came all
Speaker 1: the way from outer space to land in their sleepy
Speaker 1: neck of the woods. And Mrs Mrs Jamison is not impressed.
Speaker 1: She's she's just like, oh, a bit of rock from
Speaker 1: the sky. But after Mrs Jamison leaves, Doris the barmaid
Speaker 1: surreptitiously turns the radio back on. It's like she has
Speaker 1: a secret science news habit um. And the radio says, professor, Oh, okay,
Speaker 1: it's not Henny Hennessy, it's Professor Arnold Hennessey. The radio says, uh,
Speaker 1: the well known astrophysicist has traveled north today to investigate
Speaker 1: the mysterious object, and we'll give a detailed report to
Speaker 1: the Home Office. So we got the Jamisons and we
Speaker 1: got the Hennessy's, and we know that their their paths
Speaker 1: are going to collide. And you cut from here to
Speaker 1: two guys in a car in the dark. One is
Speaker 1: Professor Hennessy himself, and the other is a fast talking,
Speaker 1: wise cracking journalist named Michael Carter played by Hugh McDermott.
Speaker 1: Michael Carter is such an insufferable out I guess they've
Speaker 1: been driving around all day to find the meteor, right,
Speaker 1: But now they are lost in Scotland, in the land
Speaker 1: of perpetual darkness, and they are unable to figure out
Speaker 1: the map that they're consulting. And then there's some really
Speaker 1: clunky expository dialogue where Carter says something like, you mean
Speaker 1: to tell me you spend your whole career plotting stars
Speaker 1: millions of miles apart, and yet you can't read a
Speaker 1: road map of Scotland. I really think they should have
Speaker 1: inserted a prize in there, like you should have said
Speaker 1: you mean to tell me you won the Nobel Prize
Speaker 1: for plotting stars millions of miles apart. But Professor or
Speaker 1: Hennessey reveals that he believes the whole investigation is a
Speaker 1: waste of time anyway. He says he doesn't believe it
Speaker 1: will turn out to be a meteor. He thinks it
Speaker 1: will be more probably turn out to be the engine
Speaker 1: cowling of an airplane. Well, let's hope he's wrong, because
Speaker 1: that sounds like that would that would be terrible for
Speaker 1: this film. That would be boring. Yes, we we also
Speaker 1: get more exposition via the radio. The radio announcer says
Speaker 1: Robert Justin, who earlier today escaped from Sterling Prison, is
Speaker 1: still at large. His description is as follows, height five
Speaker 1: ft ten inches, fair hair. And then what do you know?
Speaker 1: Next thing we see as a guy, presumably the escaped prisoner,
Speaker 1: darting around between hiding places in the dark beside the
Speaker 1: road as the Professor and the journalists pass in their car,
Speaker 1: and he's so so unremarkable looking. Yeah, well when we
Speaker 1: first see him, he's got kind of a wild look
Speaker 1: in his eye. But he's also he's kind of blandly handsome,
Speaker 1: so you can probably tell he's going to turn out
Speaker 1: to be the hero. Yeah, he doesn't look he doesn't
Speaker 1: look menacing. So that's the that's the key, That's what
Speaker 1: that's that's that's the tell here. Uh do you do
Speaker 1: you think it's possible all these characters will make their
Speaker 1: way over to the Bonnie Charlie the end. Uh? Anyway,
Speaker 1: next thing is we see Doris the barmaid, and then
Speaker 1: Mr and Mrs Jamieson doing some chores around the house
Speaker 1: while Mr. Jamison is trying to sneak off into the
Speaker 1: other room and she's like, uh Ms Jamieson is like
Speaker 1: where are you going? And he says, oh, I'm just
Speaker 1: going into the lounge and she says into the lounge bar.
Speaker 1: You mean, well, you'll stay here if you're thirsty. There's
Speaker 1: plenty of water in the tap. So this is the
Speaker 1: ongoing dynamic between Mr and Mrs Jamison. He is always
Speaker 1: getting caught in an attempt to sneak away for a
Speaker 1: draft of scotch, and Mrs Jamison forbids it. Though. I
Speaker 1: will say, starting about halfway through the movie, he just
Speaker 1: starts getting away with consuming scotch and she just sort
Speaker 1: of like laughs about it, like oh there he goes again.
Speaker 1: He sees the opportunity. It's like alien visitation. This is
Speaker 1: my chance to just drink scotch and stop without being
Speaker 1: fussed at. But Doris the barmaid instead goes off to
Speaker 1: the lounge where she here's a strange rapping at the door,
Speaker 1: and she opens it up and what do you know,
Speaker 1: it's that escaped prisoner we saw earlier. And he comes
Speaker 1: in and she says Robert, and he says, no, it's
Speaker 1: not Robert anymore. It's Albert Albert Simpson. Okay, so he
Speaker 1: was Robert justin but now he's going by Albert Simpson.
Speaker 1: And confusingly, this is how everyone will refer to him
Speaker 1: for the rest of the movie, even though they first
Speaker 1: introduced him by a different name. Okay, so what happened, Well,
Speaker 1: we find out quote Albert Simpson escaped from prison and
Speaker 1: Doris and Albert already have a relationship, In fact, they
Speaker 1: were in love, and while he was in prison, she
Speaker 1: promised to wait for him to get out, and she
Speaker 1: took the job in Invernesshire to be close I guess
Speaker 1: to Sterling Prison where he was being held. But he
Speaker 1: escaped and here he is. Why was he in prison?
Speaker 1: We find out it is for murdering his wife, but
Speaker 1: he maintained that it was not murder, it was an accident.
Speaker 1: This is never really resolved. He just says it was
Speaker 1: an accident, and that's as much as we ever find
Speaker 1: out about it. That red flag just remains hanging there
Speaker 1: the whole time, flying in the breeze. I think we're
Speaker 1: meant to understand that he's telling the truth and he
Speaker 1: didn't really murder her. I don't know, Yeah, if I
Speaker 1: feel like the film should have put in a little
Speaker 1: more legwork on that one, Yeah, at least explained, like
Speaker 1: it doesn't go into how it was an accident or
Speaker 1: like why it was he he was falsely accused. Maybe
Speaker 1: that would sell it a little better. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but anyway, Okay, So he's convicted of murdering his wife.
Speaker 1: He escapes from prison. He finds his old girlfriend at
Speaker 1: the end and he's like, hide me. But in the
Speaker 1: middle of them talking about how she needs to hide him, oops,
Speaker 1: here comes to Mrs Jamison, you know, Maggie Smith comes
Speaker 1: in basically and uh. And they've got to come up
Speaker 1: with a ruse really fast. So Doris is like, oh, um,
Speaker 1: this is a hiker. His name's Albert Simpson. He was
Speaker 1: out hiking, uh, you know, in Scotland, and he dropped
Speaker 1: his wallet in a stream while he was trying to
Speaker 1: look at a fish. They say, and now he has
Speaker 1: lost and he needs to stay at the end and
Speaker 1: he will work for his keep. And Mrs Jamison accepts this,
Speaker 1: but she's very suspicious of him. She says, I'm counting
Speaker 1: the spoons. Oh and you know what what does Doris do?
Speaker 1: First thing? She's like, would you like a drop of something?
Speaker 1: So she pours him a scotch uh, And she's got
Speaker 1: all these questions about his time in prison. She just
Speaker 1: keeps asking like did you read a lot? You used
Speaker 1: to love to read what was it like inside? And
Speaker 1: you can just see the pressure building up. He's like, stop,
Speaker 1: stop asking and so, and then Albert Simpson's like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I gotta know who all is here while I'm hiding out,
Speaker 1: and Doris tells him this is confusing. She's like, the
Speaker 1: only people here are Mr. And Mrs Jamison and their
Speaker 1: nephew Tommy. But then the rest of the scene is
Speaker 1: other people like coming in who she didn't list. So
Speaker 1: the first guy is this guy David, who appears to
Speaker 1: live and work at the end. He's kind of he's
Speaker 1: the Torgo of the end, you know, he's carrying wood
Speaker 1: around and stuff and and and Doris confides that David
Speaker 1: gives her the creeps. But then she also says, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and there is somebody else here. It's miss Prestwick. She
Speaker 1: is a gorgeous model from London. What she's doing in
Speaker 1: a place like this, I don't know. This, of course
Speaker 1: is Hazel Court playing Ellen Prestwick. And then we see
Speaker 1: her come down to the lounge where where Jamie Jamison
Speaker 1: tries to flirt with her. Uh, he's being very inappropriate.
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, you're always pretty as a picture. And
Speaker 1: she she's like doing a little fashion show for him
Speaker 1: in the hall. I don't know, it's weird. She's like
Speaker 1: she's like talking about the outfit she's wearing as if
Speaker 1: it's in a fashion catalog. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: kind of fun like she's she's like, he says, he's
Speaker 1: breathing a lot of life into this character. Yeah, fully
Speaker 1: inflating the character here and then more hotel Hijinkson's Jamie
Speaker 1: keeps sneaking booze and uh, he says, my wife has
Speaker 1: the most unpatriotic contempt for her national beverage. And Miss James,
Speaker 1: Mrs Jamison says you should see him when he has
Speaker 1: a patriotic head in the morning. Uh. Meanwhile, the professor
Speaker 1: and the journalist, they were the ones lost in the car. Well,
Speaker 1: they're done being lost on the road. They see a
Speaker 1: sign for a pub and they're like, let's go get
Speaker 1: a drink. So they pull up outside and they run
Speaker 1: in talking about how they're going to get quote, a
Speaker 1: couple of big scotches. Uh. And then they come in
Speaker 1: and there's more like can we accommodate them type hand
Speaker 1: ringing like we got with Albert Simpson earlier, and eventually
Speaker 1: Mrs Jamison informs them, was like, well, we're supposed to
Speaker 1: be closed for the winter right now. The rooms aren't ready,
Speaker 1: they're not in ship shape, but you can sleep there.
Speaker 1: She says the beds are good, and Rachel and I
Speaker 1: both reacted to that, like something about the Bonnie Charlie
Speaker 1: does not seem like it would have good beds. My
Speaker 1: impression is this place would have beds that are basically
Speaker 1: a piece of flag stone wrapped in wool that feels
Speaker 1: like barbed wire. And I don't know if you also
Speaker 1: got the same just uncomfortable vibes from from the setting,
Speaker 1: Like I think inside this building it's one of those
Speaker 1: places that feels like it would be somehow cold and
Speaker 1: stuffy at the same time, like it's too cold and
Speaker 1: too hot simultaneously. Yeah, and one of those situations where
Speaker 1: you know that wooden bar that it probably has that
Speaker 1: situation going on where you have like the dust and
Speaker 1: the grime have kind of they're kind of one thing. Now,
Speaker 1: this kind of like sticky like black film over everything,
Speaker 1: like you know, you know that has to be the
Speaker 1: case here. Well, Mrs Jamison offers them something to eat,
Speaker 1: but but Michael Carter says, what I need most is
Speaker 1: a drink. So they go and they get drinks. Uh,
Speaker 1: and Jamie is trying to serve them, and there's more
Speaker 1: bickering about whether he will serve them drinks or not.
Speaker 1: As they settle in, Michael Carter, the journalist, begins obnoxiously
Speaker 1: hitting on miss Prestwick. Um. He's commenting on the fact
Speaker 1: that she's drinking tomato juice and he's like, not many
Speaker 1: girls drink tomato juice unless they're afraid of putting on weight.
Speaker 1: So he's like trying to do some kind of nagging
Speaker 1: pick up artist routine. And I was just thinking, when
Speaker 1: will the Martians kill this man? Unfortunately never He turns
Speaker 1: out to be one of the heroes of the movie.
Speaker 1: But then Professor Hennessy introduces himself, uh, and they decide
Speaker 1: to have another we Scotch and uh. I think this
Speaker 1: is the scene where in the span of thirty seconds
Speaker 1: they like, go get a drink three separate times. Yeah, gosh,
Speaker 1: there's just so much Scotch drinking. And occasionally other liquids
Speaker 1: are suggested as possible beverages, possible liquids that could be consumed,
Speaker 1: but generally everyone seems to be of the opinion and
Speaker 1: now scotch is the best. Yeah. They do sit down
Speaker 1: to have some dinner, to have some supper, which for
Speaker 1: which they're having scotch broth. And no, if you're not familiar,
Speaker 1: that is actually a type of soup. It is not
Speaker 1: just a term for hot scotch in a bowl. Uh.
Speaker 1: And one of the things they talked about at dinner
Speaker 1: is Jamie Jamison giving a passionate defense of the Lockness Monster.
Speaker 1: He's like, I will not have anyone speak ill of
Speaker 1: that fine creature. But can we explain the scene of
Speaker 1: Michael Carter blowing Albert Simpson's cover so that the escaped
Speaker 1: convict comes in. He's, you know, working for his stay,
Speaker 1: so he's like serving bread at the table, and then
Speaker 1: the journalist uh recognizes him. He's like, do you know
Speaker 1: who that is? That's not Albert Simpson, that's this other guy.
Speaker 1: And unless I was mistaken, I think we're supposed to
Speaker 1: believe that he recognizes him based on the description that
Speaker 1: was given on the radio earlier. I guess though that
Speaker 1: is a very vague description. Yeah, so I guess what
Speaker 1: Michael Carter is a journalist though, right, Yeah, so maybe
Speaker 1: he's seen a picture through journalism. I don't know. Oh,
Speaker 1: he just happened to cover this guy's trial or something. Maybe.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's not explain anyway. The tension of
Speaker 1: this confrontation, when it's at its peak, it's suddenly interrupted
Speaker 1: by a cataclysmic event. There's like a shaking of the house.
Speaker 1: And uh. The it is the approach and landing of
Speaker 1: a flying saucer, which when they go outside they can't
Speaker 1: even get close to it because it's too hot. And
Speaker 1: this flying saucer, I'm gonna say the effect looks a
Speaker 1: little too good for the movie that it's in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is way better, UFO, way better flying saucer than
Speaker 1: you might expect from this film a film that is
Speaker 1: often One of the things that's often written about it
Speaker 1: is that it, you know, had a low budget. It's
Speaker 1: not a high budget affair. And uh and and also
Speaker 1: you see enough films from this area, you see enough
Speaker 1: films with flying saucers in it, you get used to
Speaker 1: a certain level of of cheapness. You know, you can
Speaker 1: have like some sort of a dinky model and some
Speaker 1: large tripods for characters to stand around. That's essentially all
Speaker 1: you need and and it can be fun. It can,
Speaker 1: but there's sort of a standard level of quality that
Speaker 1: you kind of set things to hover around, and I
Speaker 1: feel like this flying saucer goes beyond that. It's it's
Speaker 1: got this um uh, you know, it's got plenty of
Speaker 1: the elements of the standards fifty standard fifties flying saucer
Speaker 1: that you might come to to expect, but it also
Speaker 1: has this kind of different energy to it. You know,
Speaker 1: it's described as being hot, betrayed as being hot. It
Speaker 1: has this kind of industrial atomic sensibility to it, and
Speaker 1: it has these like telescopic legs that come out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it has moving parts and it seems to emit its
Speaker 1: own light. Yeah. So it's this is a really cool
Speaker 1: flying saucer model, I have to say. All right, So
Speaker 1: they all react to that in various ways. Mr Carter,
Speaker 1: the the journalist, runs to the telephone and I think,
Speaker 1: quite hilariously, just keeps like screaming into it, Hello hello, Hello, Hello,
Speaker 1: hello hello. And uh, meanwhile, Doris gets her convict boyfriend
Speaker 1: to hide in the attic. Others scramble around trying to
Speaker 1: get a car working or defined a functional telephone, all
Speaker 1: to no avail. We get our first action scene, and
Speaker 1: our first scene seeing Patricia lafaun is Nia when the
Speaker 1: ship opens up and a ramp extends down out of
Speaker 1: the hull and we see Nia come out. She hasn't
Speaker 1: said anything yet. She's just silent and wearing all this
Speaker 1: shiny black leather with the skull cap. She looks very dangerous.
Speaker 1: And she comes down the ramp and oh, there's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, there's David the the ends the Bonnie Charlie's
Speaker 1: Torgo wandering around outside and he collapses outside the ship
Speaker 1: and she just vaporizes him. Yeah he is he is
Speaker 1: not a specimen that that she thinks is gonna help
Speaker 1: Mars out at all. So instantly vaporized, leaves nothing but
Speaker 1: smoke and a pair of spectacles. That's right, it's just
Speaker 1: like a steaming patch of sod and and the major
Speaker 1: tote glasses. But it's hard facts of life. She's looking
Speaker 1: for hunks and uh and Torgo here does not make
Speaker 1: the cut. This is in stark con Trust to Ship
Speaker 1: of Monsters. Remember, because in that one, our females from
Speaker 1: Venus arrive. They encounter our male hero and they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a male and they asked him. It's like, are
Speaker 1: you the prime specimen? Are you like the peak specimen
Speaker 1: for your species? And he's like, yeah, I am, and
Speaker 1: they believe him. They may believe him in this. She's like, no,
Speaker 1: now this isn't vaporized. What this is nineteen fifty four?
Speaker 1: I guess she'd be like, where is Rock Hudson? Take
Speaker 1: me to your Rock Hudson's so interesting in this film
Speaker 1: has no Rock Hudson caliber actress in it. So no, so,
Speaker 1: so that unfortunate thing happens to to David. And meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the Professor and Michael Carter have been trying to fix
Speaker 1: up the phone in the car, but to no avail.
Speaker 1: It says if all of their Earth technology has been
Speaker 1: magically disabled. Uh, And so they come back inside and
Speaker 1: and they're like, hey, Doris, fix us up a couple
Speaker 1: of big scotches, will you. That is a direct quote.
Speaker 1: But Doris can't fix them big scotches because she has
Speaker 1: been hypnotized. And this is something that will happen to
Speaker 1: multip characters throughout the movie. Later the the escaped convict,
Speaker 1: it gets hypnotized. The Martians appear to have some kind
Speaker 1: of like mind control ray and when when somebody suggests,
Speaker 1: do you think her catatonic state could have anything to
Speaker 1: do with the flying saucer outside? The professor, for some reason,
Speaker 1: is just categorically opposed to the idea that the flying
Speaker 1: saucer could have anything to do with it. He goes,
Speaker 1: I tell you that's absurd. But this is the scene
Speaker 1: where we meet Patricia Lafon. She suddenly throws the doors
Speaker 1: to the room open and comes inside. And here she is, folks.
Speaker 1: The alien commander is standing between the French doors. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, cold and imperious. And this scene just rocks.
Speaker 1: There is something so unusual in a simultaneously funny and
Speaker 1: kind of spell binding way, about the rhythm of the
Speaker 1: dialogue in the scene, the way it mostly consists of
Speaker 1: fairly short questions and answers, like the Earthlings will ask
Speaker 1: a question of of the Martian and then she will
Speaker 1: answer in a short form, and the way she delivers
Speaker 1: her lines. I don't know if you know what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about, Rob, but it just establishes this this amazing
Speaker 1: rhythm that's so consistently weird and funny. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're appoort here is pretty great. And I also have
Speaker 1: to say this scene where suddenly she's there. Uh, nya
Speaker 1: is they're emerging through these the French doors. There was
Speaker 1: something about this that I mean, it's it's a it's
Speaker 1: a visually captivating a scene, and but but it was
Speaker 1: it was tingling something in my memory, and then I
Speaker 1: realized what it was. It's h Jim Henson's film Labyrinth. Uh.
Speaker 1: Pretty early on when we encountered Jeref the Goblin King,
Speaker 1: he is standing. Uh. It's not exactly the same, but
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's very similar like these terrestrial door
Speaker 1: French doors or something, or windows that have been opened
Speaker 1: and inside um, this opening, you have this this just
Speaker 1: exquisite character from another world in this amazing costume that's
Speaker 1: you know, bold and confident and sexy. I see exactly
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. Yeah. So she comes in and uh,
Speaker 1: and the guys in the room ask her who she is.
Speaker 1: She says her name is Nia. They asked her where
Speaker 1: she's from. She says, Mars. Professor Hennessy objects that it
Speaker 1: is preposterous that she could be from Mars, no way,
Speaker 1: and then she says, hu, men on Earth are not
Speaker 1: as we expected. She's very disappointed. Uh and uh Professor
Speaker 1: Hennessy says, we scientists were always skeptical about the possibility
Speaker 1: of life on Mars, but certainly nothing so human. And
Speaker 1: she she asks him you are a scientist. He says yes.
Speaker 1: Then she says you're a very poor physical specimen, so cold,
Speaker 1: so mean. Uh. But then she just sort of shoves
Speaker 1: the professor out of the way. Presumed but because I
Speaker 1: don't know, she's trying to get a look at Michael Carter.
Speaker 1: I guess he's a better physical specimen. But Michael Carter
Speaker 1: is like, you speak English, and she says, of course
Speaker 1: you are English, aren't you? What other language should I speak?
Speaker 1: And then she does this weird hand gesture. I don't
Speaker 1: know what this is all about. I think maybe she's
Speaker 1: like turning off the hypnosis mode on Doris. And then
Speaker 1: she says that she in fact speaks all languages by
Speaker 1: picking up Earth Radio. They asked her, is this the
Speaker 1: first time Martians have landed on Earth? And she says yes.
Speaker 1: They ask why did she land here? And she says
Speaker 1: it's a miscalculation. You see, she was trying to get
Speaker 1: to London, presumably to locate the stud district of London,
Speaker 1: but Earth's atmosphere was thicker than expected and part of
Speaker 1: the ship was torn off and they were forced to
Speaker 1: land in Scotland. And the part of the ship being
Speaker 1: torn off explains the meteor from earlier. She says repairs
Speaker 1: are going to take about four earth hours and in
Speaker 1: the meantime, I guess she's probably just going to toy
Speaker 1: with them very cruelly. Now, they asked her is she
Speaker 1: alone in the ship, and her answer is, according to
Speaker 1: the version I was watching and the subtitles that came
Speaker 1: with it, the answer is Johnny is with me. I
Speaker 1: have read elsewhere that the character she's referring to is
Speaker 1: actually named Johnny spelled C H A n I, but
Speaker 1: it sounds like they're Every time she says it, it
Speaker 1: sounds like Johnny, and the subtitle spelled at Johnny, So
Speaker 1: I don't know what to believe. Yeah, I read it
Speaker 1: somewhere as Johnny, but when she's saying it in the picture,
Speaker 1: it's really hard to hear anything other than Johnny. But
Speaker 1: Shawnny would be a more fitting name, I think for
Speaker 1: an off world robot, right, because Johnny is a killbot.
Speaker 1: She explains, Johnny is a mechanical man, a robot with
Speaker 1: many of the characteristics of a human. This is hilarious
Speaker 1: when you see him later, because he doesn't he's not
Speaker 1: very much like a human. But yeah, he's a refrigerator
Speaker 1: with arms and legs. Um. But they say, but she says, oh,
Speaker 1: but he is improved by an electronic brain. And then
Speaker 1: here we got a bunch of voluntary technobabble from Nia.
Speaker 1: She just offers up explanations about how all of her
Speaker 1: stuff works. She says, the metal from which her spaceship
Speaker 1: is constructed can reproduce itself. Uh and uh. And then weirdly,
Speaker 1: I don't know why this is, but we see miss
Speaker 1: Prestwick outside the door, like listening in, like she's spying
Speaker 1: on them. Um. But eventually she gets fomo and just
Speaker 1: sort of comes into the room. But the professor and
Speaker 1: everybody arguing about this, do you realize what you've said?
Speaker 1: They've turned the inorganic into the organic. Okay, well, we're
Speaker 1: about to get to the main premise. So they start
Speaker 1: questioning her why she's going to London. This is what
Speaker 1: Nia says. She says, many of your Earth years ago,
Speaker 1: our women were similar to yours today. Our emancipation took
Speaker 1: several hundred years and ended in a bitter, devastating war
Speaker 1: between the sexes, the last war we ever had. Uh,
Speaker 1: Henny here says, so you've had wars too. I was like,
Speaker 1: why would you ask the obviously she just said they've
Speaker 1: just said. She just said that. But Nia says, all
Speaker 1: inhabited planets have had wars. Some have ended by wiping
Speaker 1: themselves out. For every new weapon invented, a defense was
Speaker 1: perfected until the ultimate weapon was developed, A perpetual motion
Speaker 1: shame reactor beam. Oh god, that's this has got to
Speaker 1: be peak um techno babble, Like what what is that even?
Speaker 1: And then how even I'm failing to imagine what that
Speaker 1: could be? Much less hall it is than utilized in
Speaker 1: an on planet battle between two factions based on sex. Oh,
Speaker 1: I mean she explains a little bit that he's the
Speaker 1: Professor's like, tell me more. I want to know about
Speaker 1: the perpetual motion chain reactor beam, and she says, as
Speaker 1: fast as matter was created, it was changed by its
Speaker 1: molecular structure into the next dimension, and so destroy it itself. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that actually helps me. Annie, but
Speaker 1: that she's got more to say, and the professor his
Speaker 1: His comment on this is so there is a fourth dimension.
Speaker 1: But now I explains more. She says, you know, after
Speaker 1: the War of the Sexes, women became the rulers of Mars.
Speaker 1: But now the mail has fallen into a decline. The
Speaker 1: birthrate is dropping tremendously. For despite our advanced science, we
Speaker 1: still have found no way of creating life. I guess
Speaker 1: she means other than like standard sexual reproduction, which we
Speaker 1: assume is their method, though they're never explicit about that,
Speaker 1: so I don't know. But then Miss Prestwick she kind
Speaker 1: of challenges Nia on this. She goes, so, you've come
Speaker 1: here for new blood, and I love the way Hazel
Speaker 1: Court here has this like defiant tone, like Miss Prestwick
Speaker 1: is feeling territorial, and she's like, you're not gonna steal
Speaker 1: my beloved earth schlubs. Uh you know, they belong here
Speaker 1: with us. But Nia just uh, you know, she she's
Speaker 1: not having any any defiance. She's like, yes, we're here
Speaker 1: to to steal your males, We're going to kidnap your
Speaker 1: mails and breed with them. But also we are here
Speaker 1: to test a newly invented organic metal, uh quote of
Speaker 1: which my ship is built on. Mars. Some think I
Speaker 1: will not return, that the metal is too unstable. But
Speaker 1: when I get back, we will build more spaceships. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: I will select some of your strongest men to return
Speaker 1: with me to Mars. Okay, so it's it's it's a
Speaker 1: it's a dual mission. Yeah, yeah, uh, it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's testing out the prototype metal and it's collecting earthmen.
Speaker 1: And Michael Carter of the Earthman says, and if I
Speaker 1: don't want to go with you, just assuming he's going
Speaker 1: to be picked um and Nia says there is no if.
Speaker 1: She says, she will take her pick of quote the
Speaker 1: Man and subdue London with the help of a nuclear
Speaker 1: paralyzer array. So like the humans start arguing about this
Speaker 1: with each other. Miss Prestwick says to the professor, don't
Speaker 1: you understand that this thing from Mars can destroy all life?
Speaker 1: And then very funny? So most of the earth males
Speaker 1: don't want to go to Mars, but I thought it
Speaker 1: was funny here how The professor is like, well, hold on,
Speaker 1: now we must think objectively about what is happening. Uh
Speaker 1: he's he says, this is the turning point in the
Speaker 1: history of the world. Maybe you know I think he's
Speaker 1: saying we need to hear her out. But it's also
Speaker 1: extra funny given how cold she was to him earlier.
Speaker 1: He's like, He's like, but but maybe it's me. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm the one that should go no, you're a very
Speaker 1: poor male specimen. But then, oh, but then one of
Speaker 1: the funniest parts of the whole movie, Mrs Jamison comes
Speaker 1: into the room and she sees this lady here just
Speaker 1: dressed in this like crazy leather space suit, and uh,
Speaker 1: Michael Carter says, Mrs Jamison, may I introduce your newest guest,
Speaker 1: ms Nia. She comes from Mars. And then what does
Speaker 1: Mrs Jamison reply? She says, oh, well that'll mean another bed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it is one of the it's always kind
Speaker 1: of neat when in a film like this you have
Speaker 1: one or two lines that are legitimately intentionally funny. That
Speaker 1: was that some good writing there, Yeah, but then she
Speaker 1: does a double take. By the way, Joe, you included
Speaker 1: here from me a screenshot of the of the character
Speaker 1: standing in front of the bar. Do you think those
Speaker 1: are all scotch bottles? Back there on the wall, they
Speaker 1: have like four shelves of liquor bottles, and I'm just
Speaker 1: I'm suddenly wondering, what are we looking at here? It's
Speaker 1: a lot of bottles, and I don't I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm not seeing a lot of gin back there. It
Speaker 1: all looks like a brown liquor of various sorts. Scotch
Speaker 1: enthusiasts will have to let us know. I really only
Speaker 1: know my way around a cup the Scotches. Yeah. Uh, though,
Speaker 1: it's funny. I just remembered something when Rachel and I
Speaker 1: were watching this, uh, you know, with all the characters
Speaker 1: that are named Hennessey and Jamison. When Um, when Nia
Speaker 1: first came in, Rachel said, my name is Campari. That's good.
Speaker 1: It's a good riff. Oh. Suddenly, at this point in
Speaker 1: the movie, everybody gets agitated that they can't find David,
Speaker 1: the guy that she vaporized out on the lawn. Um,
Speaker 1: and they're like he's missing. And then they all turned
Speaker 1: to her and they're like, miss Nia, have you and
Speaker 1: she says, of course he was no stud muffin, so
Speaker 1: I killed him. Uh. And Michael Michael Carter gets really
Speaker 1: mad about this. They have to like restrain him. He's
Speaker 1: like trying to punch her or something, and they're all
Speaker 1: holding him back. I don't know why they felt the
Speaker 1: need to establish that they found him creepy earlier, like
Speaker 1: that there was no payoff for that, Like he never
Speaker 1: did anything that was creepy, there was no So sometimes
Speaker 1: you introduced the the stereotypical creepy groundskeeper character because you
Speaker 1: want to have him be a suspect you know, you
Speaker 1: know or something or you know, or he's creeping around
Speaker 1: and happens to, uh, you know, run a foul of
Speaker 1: the Jason or whatever is running around on the on
Speaker 1: the grounds. But in this case, he's just not getting wood. Like,
Speaker 1: why did it matter that he was creepy. He didn't
Speaker 1: actually do anything wrong. Yeah, you kind of gotta feel
Speaker 1: bad for David, Like, for for all we know, he
Speaker 1: was a totally nice guy. He had no lines. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but anyway, here Naya leaves and she says, Okay, around
Speaker 1: this house, I've drawn an invisible wall. You can't get
Speaker 1: through it. So I don't even try to leave. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do repairs on my ship and I'll be back
Speaker 1: to to kill you all and maybe take some of
Speaker 1: the strongest males. And then the rest of the movie
Speaker 1: is just people coming and going back and forth from
Speaker 1: the ship like fifteen times, uh naya in in a
Speaker 1: quite funny manner. In fact, keeps leaving and then coming
Speaker 1: back to the end um. And then there there are
Speaker 1: some more scenes between the humans that are I think
Speaker 1: trying to do character development, Like there is a scene
Speaker 1: where Michael Carter, the the really annoying journalist, and Miss
Speaker 1: Prestwick fall in love. Like he ostensibly he comes up
Speaker 1: to her room at the hotel, knocking on the door
Speaker 1: with the excuse that he has come to see if
Speaker 1: she has any scotch, Like, yeah, I know they're clearly not.
Speaker 1: It's like, hey, I was wondering if there's any air
Speaker 1: in your room that I could breathe. I couldn't find
Speaker 1: any anywhere else. But if she invites him in and
Speaker 1: she he's like, you got any Scotch And she says nope,
Speaker 1: but I've got some brandy okay, um and uh and so,
Speaker 1: and we get their backstories. Miss Prestwick talks about how
Speaker 1: she's in Scotland. Actually she doesn't volunteer this information. He
Speaker 1: does like a cold reading routine where he like tells
Speaker 1: her her whole backstory just by I don't know, by
Speaker 1: like like observing her and I guess it's all correct.
Speaker 1: You know. He figures out that she's in Scotland because
Speaker 1: she's she's hiding from a married man with whom she
Speaker 1: is having an affair. He I think he is the
Speaker 1: fashion designer and she is his muse. And then meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Michael Carter explains his backstory. Is like he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I've seen all the terrible things in the war zones,
Speaker 1: but now I'm done with all that. And he says,
Speaker 1: now I'm letting my hair down, which was a laugh
Speaker 1: out loud moment because he does not have much hair
Speaker 1: to let down. Oh. But then there's also the invisible wall.
Speaker 1: This was a lot of fun because you have I
Speaker 1: established that she was going to set a parimeter, an
Speaker 1: invisible wall to keep people from leaving. And again, these
Speaker 1: characters have been drinking Scotch NonStop. And then and then
Speaker 1: you have the professor bumble in right, so they look
Speaker 1: out the window. Actually before this, sorry, before this, they um,
Speaker 1: Michael and Ms Prestwick have a dialogue exchange that is
Speaker 1: so funny. It means nothing. But at one point he's
Speaker 1: just I guess he's just frustrated. He just goes it's
Speaker 1: that thing out there, and then she says it is there. Michael,
Speaker 1: what's that mean? Thanks? Thanks movie? Yes said, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember. Now there is a spaceship outside and also
Speaker 1: an invisible wall though, and that's right, maybe that's the
Speaker 1: thing they were talking about. I don't know, is that
Speaker 1: the spaceship or is it the robot or the spaceship.
Speaker 1: But so the professor comes back. He's got blood on
Speaker 1: his head now and they're like, Professor, what what happened?
Speaker 1: And he's like, well, I went out walking and then
Speaker 1: I crashed into the invisible wall. There really is an
Speaker 1: invisible wall. I thought it impossible by all that is
Speaker 1: known to science. Yeah, I don't know. I just found
Speaker 1: that also hilarious. I think this might be the scene
Speaker 1: with I believe what my brain tells me to believe
Speaker 1: in my brain ran into an invisible wall. Uh. Now
Speaker 1: here we get the first of a couple of times
Speaker 1: where the people at the end try to figure out
Speaker 1: how to out smart Naya. Like there. There's another scene
Speaker 1: later where they set literally literally set an electrical trap
Speaker 1: for her, like in the Thing from Another World, which
Speaker 1: doesn't work, but in this scene they try to. They
Speaker 1: find a gun and they're like, well, we can just
Speaker 1: shoot her when she comes in, and uh Nia makes
Speaker 1: a fabulous entrance. She like throws the doors open and
Speaker 1: steps in. And I wish I could like show you
Speaker 1: the listener out there a gift of this, because it's
Speaker 1: it's such a wonderful step in move from Labyrinth again.
Speaker 1: There's there's no owl, but it has that same energy. Yes,
Speaker 1: uh And they try shooting her with the revolver, but
Speaker 1: the bullets have no effect. The posture that Michael Carter
Speaker 1: does while he's shooting at her is so funny. He's
Speaker 1: got his non shooting hand tucked behind his back and
Speaker 1: he's just standing up straight with the gun sort of
Speaker 1: at stomach level, just going bang bang, And of course
Speaker 1: the bullets bounce off of Nia because you know, she's
Speaker 1: she's perfect, She's she's literally nothing could defeat her, absolutely right.
Speaker 1: She says, you poor demented humans to imagine you can
Speaker 1: destroy me with your old fashioned toy. What do you
Speaker 1: know of force? Force? As we use it on Mars,
Speaker 1: I could control power beyond your wildest dreams. Come and
Speaker 1: you shall see. So she's gonna give the demonstration. I
Speaker 1: love it when aliens give a demonstration of their power
Speaker 1: for a for a crowd of earth On lookers, and
Speaker 1: so they so she takes them out to the spaceship
Speaker 1: to show her robot Johnny, to show them what Johnny
Speaker 1: can do. So Johnny he comes out. Johnny is gigantic.
Speaker 1: He is a refrigerator with arms and legs. His arms
Speaker 1: are kind of like made out of a stack of
Speaker 1: solo cups. His head is a police siren, and he
Speaker 1: he walks around. He's he's slow moving, and he hates
Speaker 1: trees and he's going to incinerate them and he vaporizes
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff with his death ray while people watch.
Speaker 1: He does the tree, he does a car, he does
Speaker 1: a barn. Uh yeah, he you don't want to mess
Speaker 1: with Johnny. I think it's a pretty good robot design.
Speaker 1: I mean it's one of the it's kind of like
Speaker 1: the the UFO, kind of like the flying Saucer in
Speaker 1: this film, where yes, it does match up with what
Speaker 1: you would expect from this time period. Boxy, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of lumbering around, but overall well executed. I like
Speaker 1: how it's it's arms though you just described him as
Speaker 1: been kind of like stack silo cups, but they kind
Speaker 1: of have that telescoping energy. Uh that matches up with
Speaker 1: the flying saucer. Well, like you feel like these are
Speaker 1: two things from the same design universe. Sure, yeah, I
Speaker 1: can see that. And again he's really tall, He's like
Speaker 1: fifteen feet tall. Maybe I don't know, he's powering. She's
Speaker 1: like he is like one of your Earth humans, but
Speaker 1: with an improved brain. Um. And then Nia, let's see,
Speaker 1: oh Albert Simpson, remember him the convict, he's been hiding
Speaker 1: in the attic. Well, he he sneaks out of the
Speaker 1: wind dough along with Tommy the kid. They both climbed
Speaker 1: down a tree and they're running around outside. Eventually Nia
Speaker 1: comes across them and she's like, ah, this this Earth, Tommy,
Speaker 1: I will take this boy back to Mars with me.
Speaker 1: And Tommy literally goes goody he wants to go to Mars.
Speaker 1: But as you might guess, this turns into uh. For
Speaker 1: the rest of the plot, a lot of it's like
Speaker 1: various adult men trying to find a way to rescue
Speaker 1: Tommy and destroy the spaceship. Again, there's the part where
Speaker 1: they try to set an electricity trap for Nia that
Speaker 1: does not work. At one point, Professor Hennessy tricks Nia
Speaker 1: into showing him the inside of her spaceship, and the
Speaker 1: way he does it by his by like appealing to
Speaker 1: her pride. He's like, we Earthlings also have powerful machines,
Speaker 1: and this makes her really mad. She's like, none equal
Speaker 1: to those of Mars. So she takes him to see
Speaker 1: the inside of the space ship and uh, and he's
Speaker 1: going to get a look at things to figure out
Speaker 1: what the weak point inside the ship biz. And you
Speaker 1: know what he finds out, Yeah, he's he he You
Speaker 1: can imagine him being like, uh, like you should you
Speaker 1: should see the self destruct mechanisms we have on earth ships,
Speaker 1: which she's like, those are nothing. Look at this self
Speaker 1: destruct button. Yeah, this mechanism is far superior. But the
Speaker 1: design of the inside of the spaceship is cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I really liked it as well. It has some some
Speaker 1: cool angles in in they do some nice things with
Speaker 1: shadow and light. And this leads me to another interesting
Speaker 1: visual connection. This is not one that I made. This
Speaker 1: is one that I ran across when I was looking
Speaker 1: at images from the film. Um Jane Voss of sci
Speaker 1: fi ast dot net. That's s C I F I
Speaker 1: S T. I guess it looks like sci fist uh
Speaker 1: not dot net anyway. This author made this particular comparison,
Speaker 1: pointing out that um that the the inside of the
Speaker 1: spaceship can matches up at least a bit with the
Speaker 1: meditation chamber of Darth Vader in The Empire's Tricks Back.
Speaker 1: They do a side by side comparison here, and UM,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm not sure. I one am convinced.
Speaker 1: I think it's a nifty comparison. The The author points
Speaker 1: out that Lucas certainly was inspired by older genre films
Speaker 1: and the and in making the Star Wars films, they
Speaker 1: did look to older cinematic images. Uh so it's I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's any connection of nothing else. The author
Speaker 1: also points to the two possible connections between um Nia
Speaker 1: and Dr Frankenfurger from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm not so sure personally, but but maybe there's certainly
Speaker 1: some shared DNA between Nia and the likes of Jareth
Speaker 1: from Labyrinth through Frankenfurger from Rocky Horror. And I guess
Speaker 1: you could also make some comparisons in a different way
Speaker 1: between uh Nia and Darth Vader. I mean, they're both
Speaker 1: you know, stunning characters clad in black shiny uh you know,
Speaker 1: garments and armor. Yeah, well they both have the black
Speaker 1: like the shoulder pads and the and the smooth headpiece
Speaker 1: and the the floor length cape. Yeah yeah, so I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe so at any rate, cool ship interior
Speaker 1: I like it. Yeah, yeah, So there's a bunch more intrigue.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go into detail about everything else
Speaker 1: that happens, especially between the humans. There's one part where
Speaker 1: like the one of the humans gets hypnotized and then
Speaker 1: they gets into a fist fight with one of the
Speaker 1: other guys and they argue about how to defeat the
Speaker 1: alien in the end, but ultimately the movie ends with
Speaker 1: Albert Simpson, the convict of doing a brave act of
Speaker 1: heroic self sacrifice to use the information gained by the
Speaker 1: professor about the weak point on the ship and to
Speaker 1: save the day for Earth. It's it's a fun ending
Speaker 1: because on one level, I don't know, I guess we
Speaker 1: were supposed to think this as well, because we see
Speaker 1: him get on the ship. He boards the ship with
Speaker 1: Naya and the ship takes off and again wonderful flying
Speaker 1: saucer effect. It feels dangerous and and you know, almost
Speaker 1: almost explosive and it takes off and it's as sending
Speaker 1: up in the atmosphere. It's gonna leave or it's Atmos
Speaker 1: returned to Mars, and we know what he is supposed
Speaker 1: to do. He is supposed to hit that self destruct.
Speaker 1: He's supposed to make the the ship explode, and we
Speaker 1: already have a built in kind of they don't really
Speaker 1: dwell on this, but she established earlier that the other
Speaker 1: Martians think that the ship won't survive the trip, So
Speaker 1: there's almost like a guarantee if they can only blow
Speaker 1: the ship up. They're not expecting her back. But on
Speaker 1: the other hand, it's like this guy escaped from prison
Speaker 1: and his biggest his plan consisted of, well maybe we
Speaker 1: can I can flee to Ireland. But now like he's
Speaker 1: got a chance to flee the planet, he can flee
Speaker 1: the terrestrial legal system entirely and go to Mars. And yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe he's gonna end up in a breeding pod somewhere
Speaker 1: with a with a you know, some sort of a
Speaker 1: sensor stuck in his brain, but hey, at least he's
Speaker 1: not in prison or in Ireland doing whatever he was
Speaker 1: planning to do in Ireland. U. So there's kind of
Speaker 1: this tension building as you watch the ship go up,
Speaker 1: it's like, is he gonna betray uh everyone, out of
Speaker 1: his own self entry or is he going to sacrifice
Speaker 1: himself for Earth? And then suddenly the ship does explode.
Speaker 1: But this is great because again, watching a movie from
Speaker 1: this time period, you have certain expectations for that explosion.
Speaker 1: You kind of expect, you know, a sort of a
Speaker 1: dynamite explosion in the sky. But no, instead you get
Speaker 1: this really cool, kind of like underwater smoke explosion, which
Speaker 1: is extra nice here in black and white. Um, and
Speaker 1: it looks really super creepy, like a indeed, like a
Speaker 1: dangerous piece of advanced technology from another world just blew
Speaker 1: up in her atmosphere, ripped a whole. Perhaps in reality,
Speaker 1: uh you know, it looks like it's created a stain
Speaker 1: in the sky that's going to stick around for quite
Speaker 1: some time. But indeed he came through, He saved the Earth,
Speaker 1: and uh, the alien threat has been destroyed or or
Speaker 1: or maybe just avoided for a little while. The Martians
Speaker 1: maybe won't come back to Earth for uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a few decades. Anyway, I agree that explosion looks really
Speaker 1: cool and it and it actually I think the way
Speaker 1: the explosion looks kind of unusual, maybe relates to something
Speaker 1: a scene we didn't actually talk about, the one where
Speaker 1: Nia like folds herself into the fourth dimension and disappears.
Speaker 1: She becomes blurry and they're like, ah, the fourth dimension.
Speaker 1: This is another scene where she's like basically just showing
Speaker 1: off how great Martian technology is. Well, you know, i'd
Speaker 1: say in the in Devil Girl from Mars Is is
Speaker 1: great fun. I do recommend it. I would also say
Speaker 1: stick around at least until Nia shows up. It will
Speaker 1: drag for the first five minutes or so, but but
Speaker 1: once Nia is on screen, it's it's a hoot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a lot of fun. Again, some great design
Speaker 1: work in here, some fun performances, uh some you know,
Speaker 1: some surprisingly good effects and costuming that in many ways,
Speaker 1: despite the budget, despite the time period, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: it feels very ahead of its time. Um. The ending
Speaker 1: is pretty solid, though part of me still thinks that
Speaker 1: Scotland should have surrendered become a breeding colony from Mars.
Speaker 1: I think I think Nia ultimately she made a good
Speaker 1: show of force. She was busting out just a lot
Speaker 1: of just cold facts on these poor earthlings. Uh so, uh,
Speaker 1: maybe they should have gone in the other direction, but
Speaker 1: still it's hard to hard to argue with the solid ending.
Speaker 1: That scene where she explains about the negative condensity is
Speaker 1: just oh so much quality technobabble on this one. It's
Speaker 1: I I wonder is there's still techno babble of this
Speaker 1: quality in sci fi films today. I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like, unfortunately the direction has gone more into
Speaker 1: just like not saying as much, or trying to make
Speaker 1: it more at least semi realistic or plausible, or just
Speaker 1: referencing things that have no relationship to real words. You
Speaker 1: know that there might as well be magic, yeah, or
Speaker 1: you just I guess nowadays you can you see a
Speaker 1: lot of the the casual invocation of quantum mechanics or nanobots,
Speaker 1: and that explains that everything. They're like, yeah, Tony Stark's
Speaker 1: power armor, it's basically magic. It just melts away into nothing,
Speaker 1: It crawls inside of I guess, like a little pocket
Speaker 1: in his skin or something. It comes back out again
Speaker 1: and then it's everywhere and it's shooting rockets, like don't don't,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. It's just it's quantum mechanics. It's nanobots.
Speaker 1: It all works out, don't worry. Carb. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: carbonano nanoitudes, so that's all you need to know. But
Speaker 1: they didn't have that excuse back in the old day.
Speaker 1: You had to work a lot more to create quality
Speaker 1: techno babble. You had to come up with phrases like
Speaker 1: a perpetual motion chain reactor beam or the negative condensity.
Speaker 1: So good, all right, we'll go and close it out here.
Speaker 1: But obviously we'd love to hear from everyone out there
Speaker 1: if you have thoughts on Devil Girl from Mars or
Speaker 1: any of the players in this in this film, or
Speaker 1: or films in a similar genre. Yeah, right in we'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from if you have memories of catching
Speaker 1: this film on TV back in the day. Uh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: We're always always interested to hear those stories. And in
Speaker 1: the meantime, yeah, we're primarily a science podcast with core
Speaker 1: episodes on two season Thursdays, but on Fridays we do
Speaker 1: weird house Cinema here. That's our time to set aside
Speaker 1: most serious concerns and just talk about a weird film.
Speaker 1: I do blog posts about these episodes at smut to
Speaker 1: music dot com and if you use letterbox that's l
Speaker 1: E T T E R B O x D dot com. Well,
Speaker 1: you can find us on there. Our user name is
Speaker 1: weird House. We maintain a list of all the movies
Speaker 1: we've covered so far, and sometimes we'll include a preview
Speaker 1: of what we're about to cover as well. Huge thanks
Speaker 1: as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow your Mind. It's
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