The Terrornauts

This movie is one of my childhood memories. Our local TV station used to broadcast it semi-regularly and I recall seeing it several times as I was growing up. As a sci-fi nut I found the story intriguing, though full of holes and very obviously done on a limited budget.

What made me want to track the movie down was, some years later, reading the book on which the movie was based. The book is "The Wailing Asteroid" by Murray Leinster, written in 1960. Like the movie the book is somewhat dated, though I think the book has probably aged better. Nevertheless, I'd still like to track down a copy of the movie and revisit my childhood Saturday afternoons.

"The Terrornauts" is on the edge of being an awful film, were it not for its slightly suggested comic approach. If you listen carefully to the music cue accompanying the main title sequence, it gives you a hint of what to expect. Classic composer Elisabeth Lutyens' score has airs of (sinister) children games and charades, and I am only guessing that is what the movie must have inspired her, with its cartoonish models of space ships, props which are riddles, pastel sets of a military base (with test cubicles and a control room) and the acting by vaudeville buffoons as Charles Hawtrey, Patricia Hayes and even Max Adrian as the "villain" who is against the space program led by Simon Oates. The program aims to find signs of life in outer space, following a hunch Oates has since childhood, when he had a visionary dream. Unfortunately, the script is loaded with dialogues, explanations and debates within closed sets, and little action. Even for children and adolescents "The Terrornauts" is too verbose, making its running time seem much longer than its 73 minutes.

At first one is confronted by the "Poe's Law" dilemma: Is this a really bad film or is it a really good parody of a bad film?

The answer is neither - this is not a bad science fiction movie, it is a really good adventure for young children. Suddenly the simplistic dialog, comic relief and low budget make sense. This film is contemporary with the second incarnation of Doctor Who (Patrick Troughton) and has many similarities with children's TV programmes of that era. The dialog and scientific explanations have that restricted vocabulary and easy to understand structure one associates with Blue Peter, Rainbow etc. Elizabeth Lutyens' cut down wind and percussion score is reminiscent of the Clangers, Noggin the Nog etc. The characters are one dimensional stereotypes: the mean boss, the handsome hero. his loyal workmate, cockney cleaning lady and fussy accountant. There is also the attractive female but there is no sex or even mild love interest here - that's strictly for grown ups - who are not the target audience for this film.

The special effects are awful and the story is silly. The dialogue sometimes sounds like it was written for radio (when Sandy disappears before their very eyes constantly asking "where is she?" seems a bit pointless). My favourite bit - which even 1960's kids would roll their eyes at - is where the hero has to drop his pencil to demonstrate that despite being in space they still have gravity - as though that wouldn't otherwise be apparent.

So, not a parody, not a bad "B" movie, not a contender for MST3K, just a good space adventure for 9 year olds.

Like Danny Boyle's 'Sunshine' forty years later this film starts promisingly enough with the receiving of a mysterious distress signal from the depths of space, but completely unravels towards the end; 'The Terrornauts' because it just didn't have the funds for slam-bang special effects at the finale, 'Sunshine' precisely because it did, and like so many movies these days ends up so bludgeoning you with visual effects you end up begging for it to stop.

Several earlier reviewers have compared 'The Terrornauts' (a totally meaningless title by the way) to 'Dr Who', but one thing it has that British TV then lacked was bright shiny sixties Eastman Colour (sic) - a first for this director - and as long as the action remains indoors it passes painlessly enough. (Respected British sci-fi author John Brunner - whose only film script it was - said that producer Milton Subotsky "was a very reasonable guy" and a pleasure to work with, that Brunner scrapped most of the original splendidly titled pulp novel 'The Wailing Asteroid' (1960) by Murray Leinster, and later got "a fan letter from someone in Indiana who'd seen it on TV and who said what a pleasure it was to hear the technical terms used correctly for a change".)

It all goes pear-shaped unfortunately when bug-eyed monsters and galactic battle-cruisers are finally called for.

Amicus were a well-known film company during the 1960s and 1970s who made a number of anthology horrors that continue to be well-regarded amongst fans. It transpires that they tried their hand at a number of other genre efforts during that time-frame too, including this ultra-low-budget sci-fi effort.

Sadly, THE TERRORNAUTS turns out to be one of the cheapest and silliest British science fiction films ever made. It has good pedigree; after all, Amicus is behind it, and their DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS, made 3 years previously, is still one of my all-time favourites. This film is based on a novel by the one-time hugely popular Murray Leinster, and has a script by respected sci-fi writer John Brunner. What could go wrong? Er, everything, as it happens. This is a cheapo production with wobbly sets and production values which are far below par. It actually looks cheaper than the episodes of DR WHO that they were shooting at the same time. The basic storyline sees a group of astronomers getting involved with a planned alien invasion, but the outer-space special effects look like something you'd see in THE CLANGERS. It's hardly the stuff to give George Lucas nightmares.

The cast turns up a few faces of interest, most notably Charles Hawtrey and Patricia Hayes who make up a kind of comic double act to comment on the action. Despite the limitations of his acting style, Hawtrey is the best thing in this - well, him and the beautiful actress Zena Marshall, one-time Bond girl (in DR NO) and now reduced to making this nonsense. Unfortunately, the male leads are resolutely dull.

I still laugh even now when I think about the Robby the Robot rip-off that rolls and wobbles all over the place as well as the dodgy explosive effects and the green-skinned aliens who look like they're wearing bath rugs on their heads. As an unintentional comedy, THE TERRORNAUTS is a lot of fun, just as fun as all those dodgy sci-fi B-movies that got made during the 1950s. But as a proper film it's a real mess.