31 Days of Cheese: Day 31 - Plan Nine From Outer Space

It’s all true.

Well, except for the pie plates. While the Flying Saucers are as fake an effect as you can get (but at least you don’t see the stings like you do in A*P*E ) they are not pie plates – I don’t know what they are but they are not pie plates.

Everything else is true.

The fake grave stones and crosses that are about 1/2 a size too small.

The scene where the extra that knocks not one but two of them over in a shot. And when we cut back, they are still down.

The tall guy doubling for the late Bela Lugosi by holding a cape in front of his face. He’s easily a foot taller than Bea was.

The insane opening monologue from Criswell (the white haired guy). A Quote: “ The incidents, the places. My friend, we cannot keep this a secret any longer. Let us punish the guilty. Let us reward the innocent. My friend, can your heart stand the shocking facts of grave robbers from outer space?”

The Airplane ‘cockpit’ with the wooden flight controls and the shower curtain in the background.

The insane (yes I keep using that word) dialogue from the alien Eros: “You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!”

We get to hear Tor Johnson actually talk like a normal person, that is a normal person with a very very heavy Norwegian accent.

The constant shifting from day to night back to day. One example: First a shot of Bela in Dracula cape in daytime, cut to woman running at night in graveyard set (we see the set a lot) cut to man in car in day time, cut to Vampira at night cut back to man in car, now giving aide to woman running in bright daylight. It can make your head hurt.

Police officers using their guns to point or push the brim of their hats up (happens twice).

Stock footage, lots and lots of stock footage.

A puzzling plot cul-de-sac about UFO’s over, I think, Washington featuring a lot of stock footage of guns and rockets going off, a weird discussion by a general and a radio man about UFO’s and the playing of a tape recording of lectures to the earth from the Eros guy.

The chief alien wearing what looks like sur-coat from a movie about Prince Valiant in the middle ages.

The round Flying Saucer with the square entrance.

Tor Johnson breathing heavily in a scene where he’s supposed to be one of the walking dead.

The flying saucer ‘controls’ sitting on top of library tables.

The uniformed policeman who whines all the time.

The clouds in the sky when we see the saucers that never move.

The aliens complaining that the earthlings refuse to admit their existence and yet killing or tying to kill anyone that sees them.

The film is dizzying display of something. I’m not sure what to call it but it’s something. For want of a better term call it the Theater of the Incoherent. During the film the basic narrative keeps waking face first into walls until it just keels over. Why are they raising the dead? What’s the point? Why do the aliens complain that the earth refuses to acknowledge their existence then try to kill anybody that sees them? You just keep asking what is going on but you never get an answer. And there is the day/night shifts and the weird dialogue and the fake sets and the stock footage use that doesn’t make sense either. All of it can’t be intentional, but it can’t all be unintentional either. To call it simply incompetence, you have to assume that Ed Wood gave a damn any of technical goofs or the incoherent moments in this film. It’s obvious he didn’t. I’m not sure it’s intentional or simply the product of a rushed schedule and no money. But it’s there. Truly Dali wished he could be this surreal.

Enjoy with any damn thing you like.

Well that’s it for the 31 days. Some of it’s been fun. But not all of it.

And tonight? I’m going to read a book.