The Flying Saucer

Dismissed by the late Bill Warren of consisting largely of "a rather dull travelogue of Alaska" but breaking new ground on the discussion of UFOs this film confused the debate on flying saucers under the misconception that there was actually only one flying saucer despite the first sighting in 1947 of several such craft gliding like saucers skimming across water.

Conforming to the then prevailing notion that flying saucers originated behind the Iron Curtain the baddie's hideout is presided over by a Teutonic Mr Danvers, capable of instilling with menace lines like "You forgot your thermos, Mr Trent!", although the profession of his partners in crime to "the cause" marks them out as followers of Uncle Joe.

For the most part it justifies Warren's criticism. Bt when it finally makes two fleeting appearances the saucer moves a lot faster than Ed Wood's hubcaps ever did.

This movie is far better than some of the reviews indicate. One reviewer rightly said that good films like The Thing or The Man from Planet X were made at the same time, but the comparison is faulty. The Flying Saucer was a one-off by Mikel Conrad who starred in it, wrote the storyline, directed and produced; it seems to be his only writer-director-producer credit. TMFPX was extremely low budget but used far superior actors. And Thing was a Howard Hawks production with a top-notch cast and crew; many of the scenes, judging by dialogue and action alone, seemed to have been directed by Hawks even though he is not credited. Compare The Flying Saucer to the many other sci-fi flicks of the early fifties and it holds up a little better. Except for interiors, the entire film was shot on location in Alaska – so you get a great look at the 1949 Alaska environment around Juneau, Spring Lake, and Taku Glacier. And a number of boats, docks, cabins, and float planes from that era. I found the storyline interesting – a scientist builds a saucer (From alien plans? This question is left to the viewer's imagination) that both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. want to get a hold of. The saucer was a good MacGuffin. Acting was stiff at times, but this was a pro- sumer production. Still, it was worth watching.

THE FLYING SAUCER is the first feature film about UFO's. The first screen depiction of "flying saucers" was in the serial BRUCE GENTRY: DARE DEVIL OF THE SKIES. Other than being a first, this film about a FBI agent sent to Alaska to find a flying saucer is pretty minor. Not much flying saucer in this film, but a lot endless shots Alaska's natural wonders, and scenes of FBI agent Mike Trent wandering around from one bar to another. The saucer is shown airborne for about a total of 30 seconds. There is also an interesting full scale mock up of the saucer, but it looks very different from the airborne one. Also the writers of this film seemed to think that there was always only one flying saucer that everybody was spotting back then.

One thing that disappoints a lot of people is that the saucer isn't even from outer space. This is not so odd considering when this movie was made. Back in 1949 about 80% of Americans thought flying saucers were real but did not automatically believe in E.T.s. Some thought they were from outer space, others thought they came from the U.S.S.R, while most thought they were American secret weapons (the Navy was often sighted as the ones who were testing them.) However in this film the subject of the flying saucer being from Russia is brought up, but no one mentions the idea of the saucer being from outer space. Also at the start of the film Mikes boss mentions that the saucer works on some totally new scientific principal. When the film wraps up, we are never told how the flying saucer works. I suspect the writers could not come up with one.

This film was a disappointment simply because I expected that it would be all about aliens. After all, with a title like "The Flying Saucer" you'd THINK it would be sci-fi...but it isn't. I LOVE cheesy 50s sci-fi. What you have instead is a Cold War Commie film- --which is interesting just because so many people have talked about how the sci-fi films of the day were actually metaphors for the West's paranoia and struggle with communism.

Mike is begged to become a special agent for the US government. However, he's very apprehensive to go and seems like a loser--and their picking him because he's a native Alaskan seemed silly. There MUST have been some other Alaskans who were more qualified than this drip! Eventually he goes and is assisted by an agent posing as his nurse. The reason they're going? Well, the Russians MIGHT have developed some top secret UFO and Mike and Vee (an odd name for a lady) are there to investigate covertly.

I was surprised that the film actually WAS filmed, in part, in Alaska. I expected lots of crappy stock footage but they really went places in this 49th state and I recognized the glacier in Juneau which was the backdrop for many scenes. It actually is a really lovely film despite being in black & white.

Unfortunately, the story itself is cheesy. Much of it consists of voice-over narration and the story is amazingly slow and dull considering it's about the Red menace! Other 50s anti-Commie films were certainly more exciting than this one. The leading man, Mike (Mikel Conrad) isn't exactly Mr. Charisma and having much of the story rest on his shoulders wasn't a good idea in hindsight. James Bond he wasn't! Perhaps he's all they could afford after blowing most of the budget getting everyone to Alaska! Overall it's a terribly dull thing that only gets a 2 because of the nice scenery. Probably not worth your time unless you are (like me) incredibly lame.

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.