Devil Girl from Mars (1954)

Devil Girl from Mars
Directed by David MacDonald
Written by James Eastwood from a play by Eastwood and John C. Mather
1954/UK
Danziger Film Productions
First viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] Nyah: Today it is you who learns the power of Mars.[/box]

The two best things about this movie are the title and the poster.

Robert Justin alias Albert Simpson (or is it the other way around) staggers into a remote Scottish inn after escaping from prison.  He was there on a murder charge but it wasn’t really his fault, the woman was “bad”.  The girl he should have been with works as a barmaid at the inn.  Meanwhile, a scientist and a reporter are en route to investigate something or other when the reporter feels a deep desire to drink heavily.  They ask to stay the night.  The only other guest is a reclusive fashion model.  The other inhabitants are the couple who own the inn and the wife’s little nephew Tommy.

After awhile, a spaceship lands and the company receives the first of many visits from Nyah.  She really on her way to London but she drops by here first.  Her mission is to bring back suitable specimens to Mars, which is suffering from a shortage of males.

Nyah keeps going back and forth between her space ship and the inn (there are only two sets), making assorted threats.  She takes most of the males, including Tommy, to the ship for visits.  Can this band of oddballs defeat her evil plan?

It is hard to decide what is worse in this movie, the actors or the dialogue.  I’m guessing that it’s a combo of both because veteran actor John Laurie who plays the inn owner does better with the same hackneyed lines.  This is really a melodrama with various romantic subplots with an alien thrown in to add a little spice.  It is very bad.  It held my attention and gave me a few smiles.

The complete film is available on YouTube but the best parts are in the two minute clip below (spoiler).

Clip

I’m guessing I’m not the only one who needs a smile after the worst Friday the 13th on record.  So far I’ve only seen two of these, so I have a lot to look forward to.