The Revenge of the 31 Days of Cheese Day 1 - Devil Girl From Mars

Hello – once again Turner Classic Movies will spend the next 31 days celebrating Hollywood and the Oscars , well it does that all the time but for the next 31 days it’s going to be even more so as all the films they will show from now until March 2^nd were either Oscar winners or nominated for an academy awards. Now I do love old movies but I do find TCM’s annual celebration to be a bit much – Oscar nominees and even more so Oscar winners tend to be much of a muchness – for example not a single comedy has won the best picture category in 70 years – Not Duck Soup, not The Bank Dick, not Modern Times, not The Producers not Monty Python and the Holy Grail (yes the last one would have been a reach) not a one and there was that stretch were Meryl Streep was winning every year with a different accent.

So, while TCM spends its time celebrating Oscar, Hollywood and all that, I humbly offer for your consideration 31 examples of cinematic cheese – bad Hollywood movies, bizarre genre films, Foreign films that hurt your brain, grade Z junk and some films that make you go huh? Somebody filmed that? Why?

And our first slice of cheese if you will – is 1954’s Devil Girl From Mars. It is bad as hell but bad in its own weird way. It was apparently adapted from a radio play or maybe a stage play – most of the action takes place in one set and –well what happens is we get the credits then an air plane crashes – then we end up in Scotland. Why? Why not? It’s beautiful country I’m told. We are in a small pub/lodging house somewhere near a loch something – and for the next 20 minutes we are introduced to the characters and learning their relationships and noting that all of them have a drinking problem – the main set is the bar and whiskey is the soup of the day judging from how they whole cast swills it down – well it is a British film.

So moving forward we learn that the old lady running the bar is married to the old guy who keeps trying to drink his own stock, their young Nephew, the hunchback assistant, the barmaid is in love with the escaped convict who is mentioned on the radio along with a meteor crash (the air plane crash is never mentioned again so we won’t either) the movie star or some such on and rounding out our troupe is the scientist and Mary Ann – no, sorry , a reporter who recognizes the convict (who is in prison for murdering his wife – he says it was an accident) just as – finally – the flying saucer lands and we meet the devil girl from mars.

Now say what you will – the British can do kinky – Nyha – the aforementioned devil girl from Mars is dressed in black leather everything – helmet, mini skirt – boots, cape, really the whole nine yards of leather. Some years later Diana Rigg would don a similar outfit and warp an entire generation of young men but anyway let’s just say Nyha is a presence here.

But why the heck is she on earth and what the hell is she doing in Scotland – well it seems that the women on mars have killed off all their men and the need ‘suitable specimens’ to breed with. Our cast reacts with horror to the thought being made to breed – which marks it as an English film – Nyha lands on the Jersey shore and they would be riots trying to get on the space ship but never mind that.

Nyha is in Scotland because something went wrong with her ship and it needs to repair self – there is a vast amount of pseudo scientific gibberish spoke in this film – living metal, perpetual motion machines and the like – pay no attention. So while that is going on she spends her time being haughty and dismissive of the humans and their limited knowledge (and let’s face it even with the scientist – the brain power of this group is not impressive) and laughing at their attempts to kill her. She also attempts to awe them with her robot Chanti which looks like a refrigerator with useless arms glued on the side – clumsy legs ( have to assume from how carefully and slowly the thing moves the actor inside couldn’t see a thing) and some kind of fish bowl on top. It destroys some stuff and then wanders back into the space ship never to be seen again.

In the end the ship is ready to go and Nyha will take one of the folks in the bar to London with her to serve as a guide (Nyha the Jersey Shore I keep telling you) meantime – in the pointless toing and frowing that makes up a lot of the film (when folks aren’t drinking) they have figured out there is a way to destroy the ship but it will cost the person who does so his or her life.

Ethics prevent me from revealing who lays down their life for England and blows up the space ship (and why won’t more come? Martins it seems are easily discouraged) but rest assured it does happen and the rest then start to booze it up in a serious way.

It’s a really silly film but silly in a very proper no sex please we’re British way.

Enjoy with a single malt of your choice and some Isle of Mull cheddar and wafers.