User reviews

Wow- I saw this movie on TV when I was about 6 or 7 and it has remained with me for 55 years- I didn't know the title but I remember the carriage of the train that the two guys were in at the beginning of the film being detached from the rest of the train and then being redirected to a remote village where a mad scientist was experimenting on people and turning them into goons- I thought I would never find it and it drove me mad so many times- watched so many old horror movies over the years hoping this could be that elusive one- finally found it on the UK Talking Pictures channel - was it as great as I remember as a kid? Of course not, but very entertaining and I can now have a peaceful retirement!

A train-passage car carrying 2 reporters--one who resembles Prof. Quatermass a bit too much--accidently winds up breaking off from the rest of the train leaving the 2 men stranded in a strange little European country named Gudavia. Once there, they find they cannot leave as those running the country have other plans. They investigate and uncover a mad scientist's conspiracy to control the people by turning them all into slaves of the state with the help of a gamma ray machine. This movie is pretty outrageous and displays some serious leaps of logic. It also features a most unlikely change of heart in one of the main characters. Still the lead actors are likable and the film is silly fun.

A mad professor takes over a castle in a country no one knows and creates weird kids and goons like something out of Village of the Damned, only this movie came out before the book. If you are up for watching a B grade horror / Sci-fi from yesteryear, it might be worth trying. Incredibly silly.

Now here's a real oddity. Made before the British scifi/horror boom of the late 50s, this eccentric film mixes gruesome scientific experiments with farcical comedy, set in a fictitious Iron Curtain state. And one of the stars, playing a straight role, is Leslie Phillips. So is it any good? Well the clash of styles is somewhat disconcerting, but the film is attractively photographed and the action and horror scenes well staged. Some talented personnel worked on it ; the likes of Ted Moore and John Box, plus John Gilling who went on to do some good Hammer horrors. "The Gamma People" isn't quite in that league but still merits a viewing.

Set in the mythical 'Democracy of Gudavia and shot in what looks the Tyrol (the locals serving as extras background just stand around and gawp), the dialogue is obviously post-synced and it has a noisy score by George Melachrino.

Paul Douglas and Leslie Phillips make a highly unlikely team in this cross between Hitchcock's 'The Lady Vanishes' and Losey's 'The Damned' as a pair holidaying newspapermen who uncover a dastardly scheme to genetically engineer a new master race.

You know you're in trouble when the project is in the hands of our old friend Walter Rilla, but Eva Bartok looks most fetching in short hair and a satin boiler suit with a Nehru collar.

Although he looked like a VERY ordinary man, in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s Paul Douglas was an actor highly in demand--particularly at 20th Century-Fox. He's appeared in lots of big-budget prestige films such as "A Letter to Three Wives", "We're Not Married", "Executive Suite", "The Solid Gold Cadillac" and "Clash By Night". In addition, he was a very frequent guest star on television. In light of this, I have no idea why he would ever agree to star in a silly film like "Gamma People". When I tell you the plot, you'll understand what I mean.

Two reporters are traveling through Europe by train. One is an American (Douglas) and the other is a Brit (Leslie Phillips). However, in a hard to believe twist, the train car they are on (and no one else) become uncoupled from the train and drifts into a tiny fictional communist country. Once there, they are initially arrested but they soon let them go--for fear of an international incident. And, while they are waiting to get out of this country that seem stuck in the 19th century, the authorities give them the run of the country--but they also are careful NOT to let them learn about the 'Gamma People'. What, exactly, are Gamma People? Well, it seems these evil commies are using gamma rays in order to turn the people into obedient little pawns of the State! In a way, this combines two B-movie genres--sci-fi and Red Scare films. Can Douglas and Phillips learn the truth AND manage to make it out of this dictatorship alive?

In addition to being an odd plot, this film is odd because of its tone. Often it's played for laughs--yet other times it's deadly serious. This is often a bit jarring and I really think the comedic elements should have been excised--or at least toned down quite a bit. I think the paranoid deadly serious stuff was a lot more entertaining and in keeping with the story idea.

All in all, this is a film you watch less for the film's quality and more because of its historical value. It certainly is an odd little curio from the 1950s! Not great but enjoyable...if that makes any sense. Plus, I learned an invaluable lesson. If I am ever stuck in a repressive country, I should do what Douglas does--loudly complain and start sluggin' folks!

This one will leave your head spinning like an Ed Wood film. It is a surreal stew of so many styles and symbolism that a reference point is reticent.

Ten years after WWII the fascist fear was forever present. Here we have science-fiction mind control based on factual events that instill a real life horror and remembrance of a not too long ago plague of pathology.

Hitler youth, enslavement encampment, and a mad scientist are at work here along with foreign journalists and feather headed throwbacks in this offbeat and mind-boggling concoction that almost but doesn't quite work.

The movie also, for some reason, throws in a bit of slapstick humor and coy dialog that got lost on its way to some other film and found its way into this sometimes sombre scenario of tortured children and monstrous and zombified men who were victims of the villains.

The result is a jigsaw made up of pieces from different puzzles. Interesting and never dull, but occasionally so twisted and ill fitting that one is left with a jaw dropping experience that will have you shaking your head, and that just might be the effect of that mind-melting gamma ray gun.

John Gilling is on my awesome list because he directed two of the most petrifying and shocking British horror movies ever made, namely "Plague of the Zombies" and "The Flesh and the Fiends". This earlier made "The Gamma People" plays in a totally different and inferior league, but it's nevertheless still worth seeking out.

Actually, only the first half is worth seeking out. The film opens promisingly, with an excellent balance between mystery and comedy, but once the absurd plot is starting to unfold "The Gamma People" becomes one of the oddest Sci-Fi of the fifties (and there was a lot of weird science in that decade). Under the most peculiar circumstances, two British reporters end up stranded in an unmapped little nation behind the Iron Curtain named Guldavia. You obviously think they are brought here on purpose and for a reason, but no. It's genuinely a bizarre coincidence their carriage, in which there are only sitting two people, gets detached from the rest of the train. And it is pure bad luck that two brats switch the tracks so that they slowly ride through the barricades of an isolated little country. There are a lot of strange and unorthodox things happening in Guldavia, or what else did you expect? The people on the street are obviously terrified of something, 12-year-old brats behave like tyrannical dictators, secret messengers are killed on the street, children disappear, etc.

It's very unusual to see a mixture between 'mad scientist' horror/Sci-Fi and typically posh British humor; - especially because the horror and Sci-Fi aspects are played straight and definitely do attempt to engross the viewer. This is also where John Gilling demonstrates his talent and craftmanship, as the vast majority of 1950 Sci-Fi directors wouldn't have been able to handle such abrupt changes in tone and style. "The Gamma People" isn't a great or highly memorable film, but it's likely to keep you very intrigued and curious. Or at least for a good 40-45 minutes, as the second half was often very boring.

This movie seems to be pulling in so many different directions at once that it's difficult to figure out exactly what the filmmakers were actually trying to achieve. Was this intended to be a science- fiction thriller, a political comment on totalitarianism, a comedy or perhaps all three at once? It certainly seems to be a bit of all three at various times, and sometimes all three at the same time. Perhaps it is for that reason that the cumulative effect is a bit bizarre and doesn't quite work. For example, if this movie wasn't intended to be a comedy then why did they cast Paul Douglas and Leslie Phillips, both of whom were known principally for playing comic parts, in the two lead roles? And why do the police who administer the supposed Police State in the movie go about dressed in comic opera uniforms and seem no more formidable than the proverbial "Keystone Kops"? Even the head of the police comes off as such a hopeless buffoon that it is impossible to feel the least bit intimidated by him. One gets the impression that the country in the film was supposed to represent a sort of miniature Nazi Germany or Stalinist Soviet Union, but it simply comes off as a slightly bonkers version of San Marino or Andorra, complete with the obligatory colorful folkways.

See this if you have never seen it, just for the experience of a film that is so truly strange that it is almost impossible to categorize under any single genre.

An American reporter (Paul Douglas) and his very British photographer (Leslie Phillips) end up in the quasi communist state of Gudavia, which seems to consist of one village, where a mad scientist is using gamma rays to alter children's minds - some become geniuses, others become feral under the professor's control.

What a very odd, quirky film this is, unashamably mixing sci-fi horror with straight comedy with the latter taking up most of the first half of the film, before it all get quite grim and serious. There is a clear intent to look at the various and eccentric traits of Americans and British and to have the west free the world of the evils of communism and oddly this mixed bag just about works if you manage your expectations accordingly. Kitsch.

This is more of a light comedy than a science fiction thriller. It's actually a film about the different stereotypes of nationalities, beginning with the "ugly American" and the "waggish British" reporters.

The film always moves briskly, due more to clever writing, good casting, and strategic directing, than on effects and big money. This is a textbook film on how to make a film look like it's more action packed than it really is.

We know it's a spoof on the nationalities from the start, as the pair of reporters are oblivious to their train car being dislodged, by accident, and rolling into a "duchy" that resembles the European duchy we get in classics like THE INSPECTOR GENERAL, THE MOUSE THAT ROARED, and others.

The duchy citizens also play to part.

However, like most good films, this takes stereotypes and changes them into three dimensional characters, or at least two dimensional. The film makes sure it doesn't lose its light hearted approach. It has the cult look of a Rocky Horror in that regard, of taking stereotypes and making more out of them.

This is a fun film, and well done, obviously low budget. There are no dull moments, which is more than I can say for most big budget science fiction movies. Much of this is because the film creates a very good atmosphere.

Never underestimate "atmosphere" and "fundamentals". This film has both.

Wow - where does one start with this?

The 1950s saw a big resurgence in science fiction films which saw man taking valiant steps into space or a wealth of bug-eyed monsters coming to Earth in their flying saucers. That other staple of the genre, the 'mad scientist', was also commonplace following on from the Universal productions of the previous decades in which the likes of Colin Clive, George Zucco and Lionel Atwill seemed to have all manner of monstrosities bursting forth from their electric-powered laboratories.

The Gamma People might sound like outer space fare, but it falls into the mad scientist camp. Having said that, it is quite unlike any other entry in the stable. For a start, this British production not only places the action in central Europe but actually has most of its shooting take place in scenic areas of Austria, and at times the panoramas of quaint towns against backdrops of lush valleys and mountains puts one in mind more of an old travelogue rather than an SF film.

Perhaps even more bizarrely, much of the first half of the film plays out like light comedy, centred around a truly unique pairing of Paul Douglas and Leslie Phillips in the lead roles. Both are playing to type - Douglas as a no-nonsense, thuggish journalist and Phillips as an upper-class photographer with a habit of smooth-talking any desirable female he encounters. This double-act generally works well, surprisingly - they're almost like an early prototype of the later pairing of Tony Curtis and Roger Moore in the 1970s TV series The Persuaders. Every attempt is made to extrapolate humour from their exchanges and reactions as they find themselves unwittingly diverted into a secret country with closed borders named Gudavia. Although eager to be on their way, transport out of the state proves just as impossible as long-distance communication. If it wasn't for the occasional hint of something more sinister, you'd be forgiven for thinking during the first twenty minutes or so that you'd somehow accidentally started watching a farce rather than the intended science fiction film.

But Gudavia holds a secret, which the two new arrivals slowly uncover, for its ruling dictator has been subjecting children to gamma rays, which can turn them into geniuses or zombie-like imbeciles. Consequently, the film takes on an increasingly serious tone as it progresses.

Although somewhat lightweight, the film does have its moments. However, I'm still clueless as to why a plot with so much potential was played for laughs to such a degree when the sinister and mysterious aspects could have been played up to good effect. As it is, the sense of entrapment and the despair of the local populace are all somewhat undermined by the light-hearted approach. Walter Rilla doesn't make for the most compelling of villains and Philip Leaver certainly doesn't carry any threat as the chief of the state police. Juvenile actor Michael Caridia as the boy genius actually upstages them both. Eva Bartok adds glamour and gravitas as the rather underused leading female of the piece.

The plot is okay but some aspects are difficult to believe in, such as how a scientist managed to not only get established but also get himself elevated to such a position of power in a country relatively soon after arriving there.

Ultimately, The Gamma People is worth a watch if only as an interesting novelty, a decidedly fresh entry in a notoriously cliched genre, but in its attempts to straddle both straight SF and light comedy, it falls between two stools and isn't particularly satisfying as either.

Due to a train mishap, two reporters (Paul Douglas and Leslie Phillips) find themselves in the tiny country of Gudavia. At first imprisoned as spies, then released, the pair find it very difficult to actually leave the country.

Noticing some odd behavior among the townspeople, they are tipped off about a certain Dr. Boronski (Walter Rilla) and the possibility that he could be meddling with nature in order to create a master race. This could explain the stiff, militaristic children running around!

THE GAMMA PEOPLE is a solid, astute political thriller with science fiction and comedy / satire added as well. It's wonderful how the reporters stir up trouble for the government and its nefarious plans! A rare, enjoyable film about freedom of the press in action, resulting in an open rebellion against oppression. The explosive finale is perfect!...

British science fiction/horror movie that is played more for laughs than it is for scares. Two reporters, a Brit called Howard (Leslie Phillips) and an American Mike (Paul Douglas) are travelling by train across 19th Century Central/Eastern Europe when they find themselves stuck in the strange fictional state of Gudavia. The local police chief at fist is very hostile, not surprising as he is in cohorts with a mad scientist who is conducting human experiments using a gamma ray. Mike and Howard do bounce off each other to quite amusing effect but Phillips's English stiff upper lip is a bit overdone. The cast is a mix of mainly British and German speaking actors resulting in an odd mixture of accents, amazingly everyone in this tiny Alpine town speaks perfect English, indeed most of the signs are in English too. For a secretive European state this is a bit hard to swallow. To its credit the Austrian mountain scenery looks stunning, the lead female character (played by Eva Bartok) isn't bad looking either! As a result of these experiments with have highly intelligent kids, who like like they could be members of the Hitler Youth, on the other hand there are adult failures, zombie like servants referred to as "goons". Both groups do produce some unsettling moments, thankfully there are a few scares. Like so many European horror movies the fiery finale has a group of angry villagers storming the castle. Director John Gilling went on to make a number of films for Hammer, they were far far better than this. Gamma People is well shot and does have a few merits but sadly it is too silly for me to give this a positive score.

Mad doctor/scientist Walter Rilla believes he can create a genius by placing the subject's head under an illuminated hairdryer and twiddling a few knobs. Unfortunately, his previous experiments have produced only a legion of expressionless, zomboid, mutant motor-morons, who wander around aimlessly.... and only slightly less aimlessly in response to a blast from Wally's whistle.

The action takes place in the tiny, obscure European state of Gudovia, remarkable for the absence of both trains and cars, but an astronomically high mortality rate, due to a series of 'unfortunate accidents'. At least, traffic collision and rail crash can be ruled out as a cause of death!

Into this highly unusual community arrive chess playing music fan buddies, Paul Douglas and Leslie Phillips, creating a political furore when they drift in by rail, along a remote, overgrown stretch of track, bringing a whole new meaning to the term branch line, following a freak coach detachment and a points change. It's hard to envisage a more incongruous match than the stocky, bluff, no-nonsense Douglas and the refined, educated Phillips. (Amazing, what being into the same music can do for a friendship). As the plot unfolds, the pair appear to be playing it increasingly for laughs. Eva Bartok, initially ensconced in Wally's world, emerges as the romantic interest. Also notable is nasty, noxious rude boy Michael Caridia. The remaining cast are either unfriendly, or of a distinctly nervous disposition, communicating their ill feelings in a bog standard mid-European accent.

'The Gamma People' is the kind of movie that better judgement screams at you to consign to the deepest recesses of your mind, yet it remains oddly memorable....for all the wrong reasons.

The Gamma People (1956) is set in the mythical European "Iron Curtain" region of Gudavia. The scientist dictators of this Gudavia have been using gamma rays in an effort to create a race of genius super humans. However, they have merely managed to produce emotionless and mindless brutes.

It is very difficult to determine exactly what The Gamma People is aiming for: suspense and terror; sci-fi with socio-political commentary; comedy involving the interactions between the unlikely looking heroes, Mike Wilson and Howard Meade; or action with its frequent fight and chase scenes. It's very hard therefore for the viewer to see this film as having any kind of real credibility and probably helps to explain its obscurity.

The standout character in the film is probably the despicable young genius, Hugo played by Michael Caridia. We get shivers just by witnessing his ability to inspire terror in those around him as in the piano scene when we are first introduced to him and later during the chess playing exchange between him and Howard.

A couple of reporters (Paul Douglas and Leslie Phillips) get stranded in Gudavia, a (fictional), backward Eastern European country (presumably on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain), only to find that someone is experimenting with people's minds. For what it is, the film is reasonably well done. Eva Bartok's Carpathian good-looks makes for an appealing, conflicted lab-assistant, Walter Rilla is not too over-the-top as the renegade scientist Boronski, and Michael Caridia is pretty good as miserable, supercilious Hitler-youthful Hugo. There is not much to the story and the opening, where the reporters' train car is conveniently uncoupled, and then seems to roll miles before coasting to a stop in the Gudavian train station, is ridiculous. The film bobs along by the numbers with the most interesting scenes being the attack by Boronski's 'goons', the vacuous-looking failures of his intelligence augmentation experiments, and the climax is pretty much exactly what one would expect when there is a secret lab in an old castle near a village of angry peasants. Although the setting might suggest 'anti-red' propaganda, it seems likely that the writer's simply needed a setting that could be conceivably 'cut off from the rest of civilisation' but that could still be easily accessed for filming. Boronski's all-purpose gamma ray emitter makes the film marginally science fiction, but for all intents and purposes, 'The Gamma People' is just an old-school mad-scientist-horror yarn. Watchable, barely, but really only for dedicated fans of the genre.

My impression of this wonderful tale is colored by my experience seeing it for the first time at age ten on the late late show in NYC. Although there are lighthearted moments, to me, it didn't (and still doesn't) play for laughs. I find it well-constructed, written and acted by all involved.

The scene on the train is nice, as I especially enjoy scenes on trains. The action continues at a perfect pace through the whole movie. There is the usual mysterious mad scientist.

A mark of quality in a film like this is that the principal players are in roles that make them accessible; they are real people and not just cardboard cutout characters. You feel as though you could at least strike up a conversation with them and try to figure out this mystery.

The movie is not currently in copyright, so is available on www.archive.org for viewing or downloading, which I highly recommend. Invite some friends over, pop some corn, make some nachos, and have a great time.

I am surprised by the low score IMDB rating. This is a very unusual, slightly weird film with lots of very good qualities. Firstly, it's unusual because of its setting, especially in a 1950s film. The outdoor sequences are refreshingly modern. The acting is excellent - especially from Leslie Phillips and the three lead actors. The central idea reminds me a little of The Midwich Cukoos and The Living Dead... and a touch of history, based on the indoctrination of the Hitler Youth. There are some very effective moments, including a rather violent murder. I enjoyed it and think it's very under-rated.

This movie is very deceiving.It seems to have a good story that makes sense but it's actually just an anti-Hitler movie full of plot holes.For once someone actually tried to make a good movie,they just failed. It starts with a train car taking several minutes to gently break away from the train.The car only has 2 people(reporters) in it because that's completely normal. One guy pushes the buzzer for the waitress(I have never been on a train but I doubt those buttons ever existed) and he immediately gets up to check on why she hasn't shown up.Nevermind that there were NO wires going from their car to the rest of the train.It was 1956, I guess they had wireless buttons. As their car drifts away from the train,we see two Hitler youth looking kids run out and throw the track switch so the car goes to their town.How did they know the car had broken free? The car stops and there's 10 minutes of time killing confusion before we learn that they are in an imaginary country that is exactly like Nazi Germany(except for the French-style military uniforms),they even use some German words. From this point on the majority of the movie is too dark to see anything,so you won't realize how stupid it is. The whole time there are hints about the reporters never being able to leave but there is nothing in the story to actually support that. There is also some stuff about weird masks that never makes any sense. One reporter gets beat up by a kid on a swing.The other one(who is fat & old and wears his pants around his neck) easily outruns a group of "goons". They get a car and drive into the country.It gets a flat and they all get out immediately and run to the front of the car,which immediately blows up. Then the fat guy tells the skinny guy to run back to the city to get help!!!While he and the girl they found run to Hitler's castle. Everything that happens in the castle is stupid and I won't waste any more time on this movie. Although I have nothing good to say about this movie,I am going to say you might want to give it a chance just to see how silly it is.