This is indeed a very pleasing and heartwarming film though the premise of little flying saucers with miraculous abilities to fix anything that's broken, does seem somewhat silly. It, however, does work with those little flying machines coming across as fun loving and cute.
There's also a good cast of characters here with Frank and Faye Riley at the heart of it all. They're the owners of an old run down apartment building that includes a cafe. After living there for decades, a change has come and it's not for the better. A ruthless cooperation bought up the whole neighborhood so it could be replaced by a large skyscraper.
As the buildings around them are getting demolished into rubble by a construction crew, the Rileys and their tenants stand firm about staying put and refuse to be bribed into vacating the place which causes problems. The company hires a gang of thugs to make their lives hell by harassing them and violently vandalizing the building.
I admit it was hard to stomach watching those brutes bullying and causing trouble towards the elderly Rileys and seeing them viciously smash up their beloved cafe. The police also act powerless towards it all and treat the situation like a lost cause.
All does indeed look bleak until two little flying saucers appear one night through the window and they end up becoming a symbol of hope for the Rileys and their tenants. They're awed by those little technological wonders, most especially when they discovered their power to totally fix the smashed up cafe and any other broken objects laying around the building. They were truly incredible.
It's also eventually discovered that the saucers were a "couple" and who functioned just like living beings. The "female" also gives birth to three smaller saucers with one that apparently "died" but later got fixed and made operational again by one of the tenants, a former boxer named Harry.
Conditions drastically improved around that place with the arrival of the saucer family who also secretly helped out in the cafe whenever it got busy. They lived in perfect harmony with the Rileys and the tenants but the threat of that evil cooperation bent on emptying out that building so it could be torn down, still posed a serious problem.
Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy are absolutely terrific as the Rileys with Tandy a standout as Faye who seemingly has dementia and is unable to properly understand all that's going on around her. It doesn't help matters either when she keeps mistakenly thinking that the leader of the hoodlum gang, is her son, Bobby.
If you can accept the elements of a family of flying saucers in this film, it can become a fairly enjoyable and pleasing view though the cruelty of the bad guys can be a bit hard to take. That nastiness, however, is what caused me to root for the Rileys and their tenants even more, hoping they'd finally win the battle against that Goliath of a cooperation. I've always liked this movie and highly recommend it.
There's also a good cast of characters here with Frank and Faye Riley at the heart of it all. They're the owners of an old run down apartment building that includes a cafe. After living there for decades, a change has come and it's not for the better. A ruthless cooperation bought up the whole neighborhood so it could be replaced by a large skyscraper.
As the buildings around them are getting demolished into rubble by a construction crew, the Rileys and their tenants stand firm about staying put and refuse to be bribed into vacating the place which causes problems. The company hires a gang of thugs to make their lives hell by harassing them and violently vandalizing the building.
I admit it was hard to stomach watching those brutes bullying and causing trouble towards the elderly Rileys and seeing them viciously smash up their beloved cafe. The police also act powerless towards it all and treat the situation like a lost cause.
All does indeed look bleak until two little flying saucers appear one night through the window and they end up becoming a symbol of hope for the Rileys and their tenants. They're awed by those little technological wonders, most especially when they discovered their power to totally fix the smashed up cafe and any other broken objects laying around the building. They were truly incredible.
It's also eventually discovered that the saucers were a "couple" and who functioned just like living beings. The "female" also gives birth to three smaller saucers with one that apparently "died" but later got fixed and made operational again by one of the tenants, a former boxer named Harry.
Conditions drastically improved around that place with the arrival of the saucer family who also secretly helped out in the cafe whenever it got busy. They lived in perfect harmony with the Rileys and the tenants but the threat of that evil cooperation bent on emptying out that building so it could be torn down, still posed a serious problem.
Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy are absolutely terrific as the Rileys with Tandy a standout as Faye who seemingly has dementia and is unable to properly understand all that's going on around her. It doesn't help matters either when she keeps mistakenly thinking that the leader of the hoodlum gang, is her son, Bobby.
If you can accept the elements of a family of flying saucers in this film, it can become a fairly enjoyable and pleasing view though the cruelty of the bad guys can be a bit hard to take. That nastiness, however, is what caused me to root for the Rileys and their tenants even more, hoping they'd finally win the battle against that Goliath of a cooperation. I've always liked this movie and highly recommend it.