An odd little cinematic gift from England — but don't take it too seriously.
The story is set in an isolated English inn where a flying saucer lands and surrounds the area in an invisible force field. From the spacecraft emerges a fifteen-foot-tall robot and an evil Martian woman who announces that the matriarchal Martian society has sent her to select Earth men for breeding purposes.
Bear in mind that this movie predates the first reported case of alien anal probing — which was in 1987 — by twenty three years. Pretty impressive, huh?
The Martian men have been subjugated ever since they lost a war with the women, and during the intervening centuries the males have grown weak and useless. (All of this is played absolutely straight by the cast. No cutesy sex jokes).
Bear in mind that this movie predates the Feminist Movement — which began in the mid-1960s — by ten years.
On the negative side — bogus scientific terms saturate Miss Laffan's dialogue. The robot looks entirely too much like a refrigerator with a police light for a head. With the exception of a few scenes, the entire film is shot on an indoor set, causing it to resemble the original stage production on which it was based (yes, a British sci-fi play).
On the positive side — the interior of the ship is nicely done, with effective use of lighting.
The concepts described by the bogus scientific dialogue are key elements in the plot — which means the viewer has to pay attention to keep up with what's going on.
The spacecraft doesn't look all that great in the air, but on the ground it's very impressive.
The scenes of the woman and the robot coming out of the huge spacecraft are flawlessly matted. The scenes of the robot's demonstration of its death ray are well done for their era.
On the negative side (again) — Patricia Lafffan (the Martian women) overacts outrageously, but her performance is still enjoyable, in spite of the fact that she is decidedly unattractive. Her shiny black outfit consists of boots, short skirt, black pantyhose, long cape, and black skullcap. That might sound sexy to some male readers, but the results just don't live up to the billing.
On the positive side (again) — The supporting players do a fine job, including the lovely Hazel Court.
Praiseworthy musical score by Edwin Astley. The story contains some good concepts. For example, the spacecraft is made of "organic metal" which repairs its own damage. Unfortunately we don't get any special effects depicting this marvel. In the final analysis, this one is more fun to watch than some of the more well-regarded sci-fi entries from both America and Britain.
Director David MacDonald had a tough row to hoe with this one. He deserves credit for what he did with material given to him.
Using Paint.net, I took a crack at modifying the robot to improve its design. The torso is too long and blocky, the legs are too short, and the head is too small.
I started with the first picture below and ended up with the second one.
By my count, there are six significant alterations. It took me a few hours to modify the robot's appearance and carefully "paint in" the highlights and shadows needed to accent the altered shapes in the torso.
You'll have to scroll up and down while comparing the two to spot all the changes. I'm hoping somebody will have fun listing them all.