The Flying Saucer (1950)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Good movie but grossly overrated

Excellent adaptation.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Mikel (spelling looks Russian) Conrad 'stars' in this little sci/fi thing as a "two-fisted playboy" who is sent to Alaska with a cute chick (Pat Garrison) to investigate the recently reported 'sightings' of flying saucers circling intermittently overhead.The film ultimately amounts to nothing more than a visual brochure detailing the beauty of the Alaskan tundra, sprinkled with Conrad smoking every two minutes followed by the inevitable littering of his cigarette butts, the curious prospect that Garrison only brought one change of clothes for the trip, and an occasional glimpse of what appears to be a flying saucer.Non-stop mellifluous background music melds the proceedings together seamlessly, but as previously stated, at least the scenery is pretty. Frank Darien as 'Matt' delivers a realistic dying scene 48 minutes into the movie. Credit also goes to Conrad here for keeping the camera on Darien's face in close-up. No doubt Conrad wanted to attain a hopefully stellar film career as a leading man. Somehow, he was able to produce, direct, and write the movie. He even closed his tale with a kissing scene on a rocky slope, remembering to carefully position himself just a bit higher than Garrison so he would appear taller than she was (which he was not).Of interest to film historians and genre aficionados will be Conrad's innovative advertising stunt to coax potential movie-goers into theaters by falsely relating that the story is derived from "classified government files".

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

Whenever I think about this movie, the scene that comes to mind is when the head bad-guy machine-guns one of his own henchmen to get the hero who is using the poor sap as a shield, figuring that the Evil Russian won't kill his own lackey. The E.R. than proceeds to pump about fifty rounds into the poor chump, but the hero is not hit once. Anyone with military or police experience knows that a human body will not serve as protection against a Thompson sub-machine gun shot from less than ten feet away. In real life, the hero would have been a sieve.Now, the fact that this is what stuck with me about this movie is actually too bad. The shots of Alaskan scenery are terrific and the basic story was not too badly conceived. The plot as it is played out and dialog however are in the poor to horrid range. Not bad enough to be funny, disjointed and entirely unacceptable as to the actions of the hero and heroine who are supposed to be high level secret operatives, the abrupt ending typifies the entire movie.

The Flying Saucer was the first movie to deal with this subject and was one of the first sci-fi movies of the 1950's. Despite reading a lot of bad reviews about it, this isn't actually too bad.A journalist and his "nurse" are sent to Alaska to investigate strange sightings of flying saucers over there. His "nurse" is with him because as he is undercover, he is in Alaska "recovering from a nervous breakdown". Not surprisingly, he falls in love with her during the movie. They make a hunting lodge as their home during their stay but the man who suppose be helping them to do odd jobs is actually a Russian spy and tries to kill the woman a couple of times. He has something to do with the saucer, which appears eventually. The spies are caught out at the end and one of them takes off in the saucer, which then explodes into thousands of little pieces.There is some nice scenery in The Flying Saucer and the music score is quite good for a low budget movie.The cast is mostly made up of unknowns with Mikel Conrad and Pat Garrison as the too main stars. Conrad also wrote the story and produced. He also appeared in another sci-fi B movie - Untamed Women in 1952.Though not brilliant, The Flying Saucer is worth having in any sci-fi collection. Enjoyable.Rating: 2 and a half stars out of 5.