This is a fairly typical old black and white sci-fi movie. I was aware of this when I picked it up -- how could I not be with a title like that -- but I was actually surprised to see fairly competent special effects contained within it. This is not to say that there are not some bad and funny bits in it, just that there are not as many as there theoretically could have been had the budget been a bit smaller.

The movie begins with a narration about the mystery of UFOs over pictures of stars and UFO sightings. It claims that "ever since biblical times" we have speculated "about visitors from another world." I have been trying to figure out what the narrator is talking about since I don't remember many instances of UFO sightings in the Bible. Also notable during the narration is a great shot of a UFO passing a passenger jet and the reactions of the people in it. Most of the people just sit quietly in their seats looking out the window at the spinning saucer superimposed on the skyline with bad CSO. The only passenger that seems even a bit concerned is the stewardess who drops her tray of complimentary soft drinks. The intro also introduces us to a couple of government agencies that never show up again in the movie but are presumably working in the background the whole time. In the Air Intelligence Command Center they have a couple of people who are making funny waving back and forth hand motions, apparently to illustrate the motion of the flying saucers they saw. The second agency, The Hemisphere Defense Command, contains some people in military uniforms. An order is given to fire at any unidentified object, though the head honcho who gave the order wonders whether their forces would be in any way effective in the chance of an alien invasion. Um, maybe it is just me but is it wise to initiate hostile attacks on an enemy which has not demonstrated any hostile actions, especially when you doubt your weapons would be effective in a full scale war?

After the title and credits scroll onto the screen we meet the main characters, Russell E. Marvin and his wife. I don't really remember if she actually had a name as she is usually referred to as Mrs. Russell E. Marvin, the wife of Russell E. Marvin, the secretary of Russell E. Marvin, or something else in that vein. She even refers to herself that way, though this is probably just due to the novelty of having been married just the day before. Russell E. Marvin is a scientist who works at a base called Operation Sky Hook. Luckily for us Russell feels the need to record everything he plans to do on a Dictaphone, conveniently filling us in on the plot thus far while they drive in their car to the base. Russell plans to achieve the "ancient dream of exploring space" by sending up a bunch of satellites to study miscellaneous stuff in space. He has "launched ten of the artificial satellites, or birds as we call them," but has lost contact with every one of them. While he is recording this convenient message, a flying saucer flies over the car. Instead of slowing down or stopping, they just keep driving while the flying saucer makes a funny noise and nearly hits them. After the saucer is gone they finally stop and have a smoke, which apparently is a sure sign that they are in some degree of stress.

Russell and his wife go to work and seem to forget all about the UFO that they saw just a few minutes before. Marvin even makes a pass at his wife! Maybe it is a nervous reaction. The memory of the UFO is recalled later in the day when it is realized that the sound of the UFO was recorded on the Dictaphone. After this realization, the UFO is forgotten again, and they throw a barbecue and continue sending up satellites, seemingly suffering from Alzheimer's disease. During the barbecue Russell learns from his father in law, who happens to be high up in the military, that all of his "birds" were shot down. When they look up in the sky, they are lucky enough to see the satellite they sent up earlier that day streaking down through the atmosphere.

They also see these small lights which Russell seems to think can be explained by aurora borealis. I am at odds to explain how absurd this is. These lights basically look like really big stars and absolutely NOTHING like the northern lights. These lights cause even more problems later. It turns out they are surveillance devices controlled by the aliens. At one point, one of these devices flies at a group of people and reveals its approximate size to be about that of a basketball. Now, if anyone had even bothered to examine these lights in the sky it would be very obvious that they were fairly close simply through the use of perspective. They had ample time to do this, since they seem to have grown so accustomed to the lights that no one pays attention to them any more.

Russell decides to send up another "bird" the next day with the plan of monitoring it constantly for several days in hopes of getting information on whatever is shooting them down. He and his wife do this monitoring in a bomb shelter that is conveniently sound-proofed to save the precious movie budget for things other than rocket noises. Spending your first days of marriage in a bomb shelter watching a TV screen.... How romantic! Before the rocket can liftoff, however, the aliens arrive and destroy everything and everybody at the base except for the bomb shelter and the Marvins. Russle discovers that the sounds he recorded earlier are actually messages played at high speed. When he discovers that the aliens are planning to take over Earth, war is declared on the saucers.

Russell apparently designs weapons in his spare time and manages to create a weapon that will disable the flying saucers (the aliens stupidly tell him how their ships operate). The rest of the movie is mainly taken up with scenes showing the flying saucers crashing into famous landmarks. One of these is fairly entertaining. When a saucer hits the Washington monument, it topples like a tree while the people below run to avoid getting hit by it. Overall this is an entertaining movie.

Turkey rating: 3

Scene to watch for: The saucer hitting the Washington monument.

Things that make you go "Huh?": If the armor the captured alien is wearing is made out of solidified electricity which nothing can penetrate (an impossibility to begin with), why can the soldiers shoot the aliens and kill them?

Response From RinkWorks:

The reason the special effects are good, I'm sure, is because the late great Ray Harryhausen was responsible for them. His most famous work is the stop-motion animation in "Jason and the Argonauts" and "Clash of the Titans." -- Sam.

The "biblical times" reference is probably a reference to the Book of Ezekiel. Many UFOlogist point to the experiences of the prophet Ezekiel (who wrote of God's voice speaking to him while being visited by these undescribable-by-me "creatures" and "wheels of fire" from the sky) as typical reports of close encounters with UFOs. I say all it takes is a cursory reading of the first few verses of Ezekiel (try 1:1 through 1:28) to see that Ezekiel is most definitely talking about something *other* than your run-of-the-mill flying saucer. Here, check it out for yourself: http://www.genesis.net.au/reference/bible/kjv/ezekiel/ -- Dave.