Sci-Fi The 27th Day (1957)

BudBrewster

Captain
This one is a personal favorite of mine. It's fun and intelligent -- which is practically a cinematic miracle.

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Five Earthlings from different countries (including Gene Barry of War of the Worlds and lovely English actress Valerie French) are kidnapped by a Klaatu-like alien who gives each of them a strange transparent case containing silver capsules.

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The capsules have the power to make millions of humans vanish, without harming animals or causing destruction. The alien's race desperately needs the planet Earth, but they are morally opposed to conquering it, so they give the war-pron Earthlings the ability to finish themselves off without devastating the planet in a nuclear war.

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Don't expect any special effects except for two brief clips from Earth versus the Flying Saucers, one space scene from The Day the Earth Stood Still --

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-- and a small-scale test of the alien weapon, performed far out in the Pacific so that millions of people aren’t wiped out by the alien weapon.

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But despite the film’s modest budget, the interior of the spacecraft is nicely done, even if it does look like the set of a modest fan film today.

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This is an intelligent and uplifting movie, done on a small budget, although it's a bit too talky and actionless for some taste. Director William Asher was a busy fellow in Hollywood from 1948 until 1990, and his work includes two Beach Party movies, one Twilight Zone episode, and lots of sitcoms -- including 132 episodes of Bewitched!

John Mantley wrote both the screenplay and the original novel. In the novel the capsules had a somewhat more far-reaching (and disturbing) effect on humans than they do in the film.

The film was originally co-billed with 20 Million Miles to Earth, and that’s exactly how I saw it – at the Roosevelt Drive-In, in College Park, Georgia in 1957. I was nine years and didn’t sleep a wink that night after we got back home. How could I? A night of flying saucers, aliens, crashing rockets, and a rampaging monster in Rome, Italy!

Aaaah yes, heaven -- 1950s style!
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Available from Amazon for $16.87.

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20 Million Miles to Earth (1957)
Tagline: Space nightmares!
Genre: Science Fiction, Horror
Director: Nathan H. Juran
Release: 1957-02-08
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