Stranger from Venus (AKA “Immediate Disaster”; “The Venusian”)
Directed by Burt Balaban
Written by Hans Jacoby; story by Desmond Leslie
1954/USA
Rich & Rich Ltd.
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] I believe alien life is quite common in the universe, although intelligent life is less so. Some say it has yet to appear on planet Earth. — Stephen Hawking [/box]
This rip-off of The Day the Earth Stood Still lacks the original’s script, sets, special effects, and robot. It does star Patricia Neal, though.
As the story begins, an intense light blinds Susan Neal (Neal) and her car crashes violently into a tree. We see a faceless man standing over her lifeless body. Segue to the bar of an English country inn. The Stranger asks for a drink and prefers plain water to beer. He is clearly a very suspicious character. Susan’s fiancé, a high government official is checking in. Susan is very late. Suddenly Susan shows up relatively unscathed.
The Stranger soon admits that he is from Venus. The rest of the story concerns his planet’s mission to warn the Earth against nuclear weapons and the British government’s misguided efforts to steal the Stranger’s technological secrets. We also get an outright romance between the Stranger and Susan.
This movie is very bad and not in a good way. Almost all of it takes place on the bar set, which seems eerily like the setting of Devil Girl from Mars. I suspect the film makers simply reused that scenery. There are very few special effects and those are awful. Even Devil Girl from Mars had a robot! This cheapie doesn’t even show the spaceship. The talky dialogue is atrocious. Poor Patricia Neal deserved much better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlKd7nYDxqs
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