I saw Larry Buchanan's remake ("Attack Of The The Eye Creatures"(sic)) before I saw "Saucer Men", and "Saucer Men" is so much better by comparison that maybe my judgment has been thrown off...but as dopey teenage science fiction films go, it's not all that bad.
Even without any previous knowledge about "Saucer Creatures", it's obvious that someone started out to make a straight science fiction thriller and decided early on that, no, a serious approach wasn't going to cut it. The result is, well, not really very funny OR thrilling.
Still, the movie gets by on the strength of some quirky performances and a couple of interesting ideas. The actors playing the two drifters actually have a decent sense of comic timing and delivery even when the screenplay telegraphs their punch lines; the two air force officers in charge of the cover up are at least not painful to watch (I was sure one of them was Corman standby Dick Miller - turned out I was wrong); and even the hopelessly clichéd teenage couple are pleasant to watch as they go through their roles and their paces. Their "why won't anyone believe us?" schtick carries the film as far as it needs to go to avoid utter banality.
The saucer men themselves are so ridiculous as to actually be somewhat compelling. The bulbous heads and tiny bodies and shovel sized hands make for a fairly good representation of "little green men". Although what they intended to accomplish on a planet with regular periods of sunlight that were utterly fatal to them is a question for the ages. Seriously, they didn't bring so much as a pair of sunglasses or SPF 15 sunblock.
Worth seeing once if you are a fan of low budget 50s science fiction.
Even without any previous knowledge about "Saucer Creatures", it's obvious that someone started out to make a straight science fiction thriller and decided early on that, no, a serious approach wasn't going to cut it. The result is, well, not really very funny OR thrilling.
Still, the movie gets by on the strength of some quirky performances and a couple of interesting ideas. The actors playing the two drifters actually have a decent sense of comic timing and delivery even when the screenplay telegraphs their punch lines; the two air force officers in charge of the cover up are at least not painful to watch (I was sure one of them was Corman standby Dick Miller - turned out I was wrong); and even the hopelessly clichéd teenage couple are pleasant to watch as they go through their roles and their paces. Their "why won't anyone believe us?" schtick carries the film as far as it needs to go to avoid utter banality.
The saucer men themselves are so ridiculous as to actually be somewhat compelling. The bulbous heads and tiny bodies and shovel sized hands make for a fairly good representation of "little green men". Although what they intended to accomplish on a planet with regular periods of sunlight that were utterly fatal to them is a question for the ages. Seriously, they didn't bring so much as a pair of sunglasses or SPF 15 sunblock.
Worth seeing once if you are a fan of low budget 50s science fiction.