Auteur/Perpetrator: W. Lee Wilder
Star of Shame: Peter Graves
Monster(s): Huge-eyed aliens breeding giant mutated creatures; the Foley guy
“Plot”: Nuclear scientist seeks to stop aliens who are trying to invade Earth
By Richard Romano
W. Lee Wilder may not be a household name—but maybe it depends which house you’re in—but his older brother was Billy Wilder, director of such classics as Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, The Apartment, Some Like It Hot, Lost Weekend, etc. The decidedly less talented W. Lee also has to his directorial credit The Snow Creature, previously Mis-Treated quite ruthlessly. The Snow Creature was made the same year as Killers From Space, but Wilder’s coup was getting the late great Peter Graves, who, early in his career, appeared in a bunch of these low-budget sci-fi films. In The Beginning of the End, Graves fought giant grasshoppers bent on conquering Chicago, and in It Conquered the World, Graves fought a giant pickle from Venus (immortalized on MST3K as well as in the spoken into to “Cheepnis” on Frank Zappa’s Roxy and Elsewhere).
In Killers From Space, Graves is a hapless nuclear scientist who dies in a plane crash but is resuscitated by aliens to help them conquer Earth. Why? Given their giant ping pong ball eyes, I can only assume it’s because their home world is running low on Visine. As in The Snow Creature, costuming isn’t Wilder’s strong suit (so to speak) and the aliens are pretty silly looking. In all fairness, the movie is actually not bad until the aliens show up. There is an intriguing mystery about Peter Graves’ disappearance...but once we see the aliens, hear their incredibly silly, Rube Goldberg-like strategy for conquering Earth, and see the bad process shots of “giant” lizards and spiders (and whoever did the sound effects for that sequence was on some powerful narcotics!), it really just goes downhill fast. The science makes even less sense than it usually does in these types of movies, and I still want to know why a Nevada utilities company would be running power lines out to a remote desert area that is used for A-bomb tests.
We open on Soledad Flats, Nevada, 6:15 a.m. Planes take off, some of which are burning oil in a big way. “The climax of arduous planning.” Oh? “Operation A Bomb Test” is underway. I hope that’s not its secret code name; the cover may be blown. “Military personnel, from buck private”—or even buck naked—“to top-ranking brass, men from research and news services all move into position.” It’s quite a crowd they’re rounding up for this. Maybe the secret code name is “Operation Irradiate the Entire U.S. Population.”
The narrator goes on about the plane that will drop the bomb, and “radar with eyes that never sleep.” This movie will put that to the test. And, hey, the mentioning of “eyes”—is that clever foreshadowing? Nah, more like eyeshadowing.
“All orders are carried out with split-second precision.” Parabolas are deployed. Commercial airlines are told to stay out of the test area. Well, except U.S. Airways. They’re actually encouraged to fly through it.
The countdown reaches zero, and, boom! We have Jefferson Airplane album cover. Crown of Creation indeed. And we have titles.
An obviously superimposed model airplane flies around and around the mushroom cloud. The biplane in the old Universal Studios logo was more realistic. Actually, it kind of looks like Wonder Woman’s invisible airplane. Where’s Lynda Carter—or are the aliens kidnapping her to supply them with giant contact lenses?
The plane is called Tar Baby 2. Okay. There is a pilot and Dr. Martin, the latter of whom radios back some random numbers. This is an elaborate random number generator? “1378 negative, second indicator... 1.08 negative....Radiation .4” Really? Wow! I had no idea. “Roger, proceed according to plan.” Was there a danger of Dr. Martin suddenly making stuff up as he went along?
They get in closer, and the pilot notices a shining object on the ground below. “Looks like a fireball,” says Dr. Martin. A fireball? Near an atomic bomb detonation? How odd. The plane goes down to investigate—and the pilot loses control. The plane plummets straight down. Not good. “The controls are frozen!” Hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete, or reboot. Nope. They’re gone. Dead, Jim.
Back at the base, the radioman loses contact with Tar Baby 2. He grabs the phone. “We’ve lost contact, sir. Baker, too, sir.” They’ve lost their baker, as well? No bread for them today, I guess. He hangs up and gets back on the radio. “All patrol craft in the test area—this is a Mayday.” Everyone gather at the maypole and dance around it. “Search for Tar Baby 2.” And go watch Song of the South so you know what you’re looking for.
Tar Baby 7 spots the wreckage of Tar Baby 2. Is “Tar Baby” really the best code name for your aircraft? Anyway, there is no sign of any survivors. So...the star of the movie was just killed off. That was quick. Can I go now?
A short time later, Col. Banks picks up the phone and asks Dr. Kruger to come to his office. Wow, I bet aircraft could get lost in the cleft in his chin. It looks like a bottomless abyss. Dr. Martin’s wife is there, and, from the wall, they are watched over by the all-seeing President Eisenhower, just like the giant eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg watching over the ashheaps of Queens in The Great Gatsby. Okay, that’s a reach, but I’ve got this “eye” motif going...
It turns out that the rescue crews had searched the wreckage, but could find no sign of Dr. Martin’s body. Dr. Kruger arrives; wow, every angle in this scene has the picture of Ike in it. And his eyes follow you wherever you go. Spooky. Call him Eyes-enhower. “Is there any hope?” Mrs. Martin asks. “I’m afraid not,” says Col. Banks. The pilot’s body was found, and there no chance that anyone could have bailed out.
The military must have a good floral decorator, because there is a vase of flowers in Col. Banks’ office. Hmm...they must be irises. (Because of...eyes..and... oh, never mind.) The colonel then lights a cigarette the size of a pool cue. He’s going to be as dead as the pilot if he keeps that up for much longer. And we fade out. Okay...
Outside, a figure stumbles onto the airbase, which has a nice big mailbox. Guess a lot of folks write to the Air Force. Well, well, well, guess who’s not dead after all? A sentry recognizes Dr. Martin and ushers him to the base hospital.
The doctor can find nothing wrong with Dr. Martin, and is really annoyed that Martin has no recollection of anything that happened during and after the crash—or how he got a giant L-shaped incision scar on his chest. “Your medical history showed no indication of any scars anywhere on your body.” Or hair, for that matter. “I must have got it in the crash,” says Martin blithely. Of course. “No, this was surgery, a very skillful incision.” Can incisions be skillful? And, if so, doesn’t it depend on what the purpose of the surgery is? Oh, sure, they sliced open your heart and severed your aorta, but boy is that incision skillful.
In Col. Banks’ office, Briggs from the FBI shows up. “You know our base surgeon, Major Clift?” Call him Monty. And of course you know President Eisenhower. Briggs had just been to see Martin—“the key man in this nuclear project.” You could say he’s the nucleus of the team. Briggs is suspicious of Martin’s mysterious disappearance. “Did you ever stop to think that this Dr. Martin may not be the Dr. Martin?” No, and for very good reason, as it is silly. “This man could be an imposter.” So there is a strange montage of people putting papers into a large trough, filing papers, and handing around sheets with giant fingerprints on them. Finally, Briggs hears from Washington. Dr. Martin is the real Dr. Martin. You would think that a top secret air base would have all the information on the people who work there, so why they need to send to Washington to check Dr. Martin’s fingerprints is a mystery.
“Now,” says Briggs to Col. Banks, “here’s what I suggest you do...” Lick me. And we dissolve out. Hey, what should we do?
A short time later, Mrs. Martin is angry that they are keeping her husband in the base hospital. The doctor tries to explain. “His reflexes are excellent.” I was worried about that. It’s vitally important that nuclear scientists have cat-like reflexes. Those slide rules can get out of hand. “Except for that one lapse of memory, his mind is perfectly clear.” Oh, and he thinks he’s Ethel Merman. But aside from that... “Isn’t that natural under the circumstances?” she argues. The doctor agrees. Then what’s the problem? “Except for the question of the scar on his chest.” And did he mention how skillful an incision it was? “I know he didn’t have it before the crash,” she is quick to point out. Those scratches on his back, yes....
The whole conversation is moot because they’re letting her take him home. “Provided you can keep him quiet and he can get enough rest.” What is he implying? “I understand,” she says, “now he’ll just have to take that vacation he’s been wanting.” “Vacation...” says the doctor. “To watch him, you’d think he’d never heard of one.” Ah, one of those. He’s probably got a sailboat that has a bumper sticker on it that reads “I’d rather be working.” Col. Banks pipes up and stresses that Martin was eager to conduct another atomic test.
“Is there anything he shouldn’t be allowed to do?” Mrs. Banks asks. He should probably avoid crashing in a plane again. “No,” says the doctor, “except he does need a diversion.” Oh, I think that’s exactly what she had in mind. “Anything that won’t upset or excite him.” Oh. Dang. “I see...movies, bridge, drives, things like that.” Are those things that would or wouldn’t upset him? “North bids 1 no trump, m*****f****r!!!! Ahh!!! Ahh!!!”
“Well,” says the doctor,” you’re the doctor now.” Uh huh. And she’s going to play it, too.
That night, Martin sleeps fitfully. He tosses and turns, mumbling in his sleep. “Rollin...Cinnamon...must depose South American dictator...” He suddenly sits bolt upright. Out the window, he can see two giant eyes looming in the darkness. They vanish. Oh, no! The Cookie Monster has become a peeping Tom! Martin gets up and goes for a glass of milk. He then dials the phone and calls the base. Ellen walks in and is mad.
He talks to Sgt. Bandero and asks if there are any last-minute orders on a new test. At three in the morning? “What do you mean you can’t tell me?” he growls. “Sorry, sir, regulations. I can’t give out information to anyone” Heck, I can’t even tell myself. Martin decides to go down to the base. Ellen is not happy. She tries to get him to slow down “if not for your own sake then for mine.” She then finds a way to take his mind off work...
The next morning, they are up at the crack of noon. Martin is outside Ellen’s window hold up a large boombox playing “In Your Eyes.” Oh, wait... and there is a bit of domesticity as Martin encourages his wife to get out of bed, since it’s eleven a.m. He unbuttons his pajama top and walks outside. What? Exhibitionist. He gets the paper. Oh, no! Not “New Petitions Against Tax”! Next thing you know, there will be a “Building Code Under Fire.” More to the point, though, there was another nuclear test earlier that morning. Wait...how did a news story from six o’clock that morning make the morning paper? Did they just print it in advance, like “Dewey Defeats Truman”?
In Col. Banks’ office, Martin shows him the paper and we see more of the front page—aha! I knew there had to be a “Building Code Under Fire” somewhere. Anyway, Martin is mad that they went ahead with the test without him. “In your present state, you’re not considered a very good security risk.” What? So...does that mean he’d be a risk to security or not? He insists he’s okay, they insist he’s a sick man, and he’s threatened with incarceration in the base hospital unless he goes home and relaxes. He stalks out in a huff...to relax, I guess. That’ll go well.
Dr. Martin enters what I guess is his office and there is a strange woman there. “I didn’t expect you back so soon,” she says. What was she doing there? Or don’t I want to know? “Haven’t you heard? I’m a mental case. I can’t even be trusted with my own work.” And then he growls at her. Q.E.D. Ah, turns out she is Miss Vincent, his secretary. He gives her the rest of the day off.
A close up of a watch tells us that it is now after four. Soon, it’s after six. Tempus fugit. Martin peers out of his door. Dr. Kruger walks into the office across the hall. Has Martin been hiding in his office for six hours? Kruger goes into a safe in his office closet and puts some things away. Martin fills his pipe with tobacco. Ah, good. When you’re sneaking around a military base and are fearful of getting caught, it’s best to be smoking a pipe while you’re doing it. Maybe no one in the 1950s could smell tobacco smoke. Hmmm...”Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”?
His phone rings—and he decides to let it go to voicemail. Oh, right, this was the 1950s... He peeks out again and Kruger turns off the light in his office and leaves for the day. Half day, Dr. Kruger? Ha ha ha. Kruger backtracks and pops into Martin’s office. Doh! So Martin hides behind the open door. Kruger looks around briefly, then leaves. Whew! That was...not very close.
Martin sneaks across the hall, pipe clenched in his teeth, and opens Kruger’s closet vault. He starts going through papers. His pipe falls out of his mouth, and he stuffs it in his pocket. Why did he take it? He leafs through various folders. Kruger’s income tax reports? A collection of letters to the editor of the local paper about the new building code? A copy of a petition against tax? Love letters to Mamie Eisenhower? But why? His work there done, he sneaks out. Some brilliant scientist; he made sure to leave the vault door open.
Soon, though, a random guard wanders into Kruger’s office, sees the open vault door, and makes a phone call. “Meringue, please.” What? Oh, “main gate.” What? At the meringue, I mean the main gate, the phone rings, and the guard is asked about Dr. Kruger. “He checked out about twenty minutes ago.” That was so not twenty minutes ago. More like two, as there were no time cuts in the previous sequence. Meanwhile, Martin signs out of the base with no problem. He’s not particularly good at being stealthy is he? He leaves the vault door open, signs out after six o’clock, which is about six hours after he was told to leave. It’s almost like he wants them to know it’s him.
Dr. Kruger pulls into his driveway and Briggs is there to meet him. Do they have something going on? “Briggs...Of course, I’ve heard of you.” Briggs wants Kruger to accompany him back to Kruger’s office. Why? “Just a few things we need to straighten out.” “Does it concern me?” Well, he’s asking you, so, yes.
Back in Kruger’s vault, he makes a quick check of the papers. Yep, everything is still intact, including the Mission: Impossible fan fiction. Briggs tries to rip Kruger a new one for not locking his vault—but Kruger insists it was locked. Turns out that only Kruger, Col. Banks, and Dr. Martin have the combination. Banks says that they saw Martin earlier—“in my office at four o’clock.” Huh? So Martin saw the newspaper headline before eleven that morning, waited five hours, and then charged down to the base? What was he doing all that time, watching TV? Briggs then points out that Martin didn’t sign out “until twenty minutes after you left.” Kruger is aghast. “There must be some mistake; I personally checked his office just as I was leaving.” Yeah, that thorough two-second glance at the telephone. I don’t know how you could have missed him.
“Do you always do that?” Briggs asks. “Well, no, but Dr. Martin has been acting a little strange as of late.” Why, because he wants to do his job? Considering the fact that he was in a plane crash a day earlier and has amnesia, I think he’s acting pretty normal.
Briggs looks down and notices a mound of pipe tobacco on the floor of the vault. Oh, come on, so the only reason that Martin had filled his pipe and clamped it in his teeth was so that he could drop it and leave behind more incriminating evidence that he was there? Either this is bad writing, or he’s appallingly bad at being sneaky. Yep, and naturally Kruger doesn’t smoke at all and Banks has his giant cigarettes, so they have no trouble determining that it’s Martin’s. Eye-yi-yi.
At Martin’s house, he still has not come home, and Briggs is questioning Ellen. She doesn’t know how long he has been smoking that brand of pipe tobacco. Really? And, who cares anyway? “I hate to ask this,” says Briggs. Are you free for dinner Tuesday? Oh... “Have you ever had any suspicion that there might be...another woman?” You mean, on Earth in general, or in her husband’s life? “Certainly not!” “I’m sorry, Mrs. Martin,” he says smugly. “Why are you asking me these questions?” she asks, rightfully. “Let me put it this way,” he says. I’m a tactless dickweed. “Has he made any new friends lately? People not in the usual group.” What? Do you mean, anyone perhaps named Ivan? Turns out that the only people they hang with are associated with the Institute. Sounds dull. No wonder Martin is going crazy. She starts singing “Don’t It Make Your Brown Eyes Blue.”
The phone rings. It’s for Briggs. Great. Now he’s getting calls on her phone. Before we can figure out who it is, we cut to Martin driving on a deserted street at night. At the same time, a police dispatcher puts out an APB for “a two-toned coupé.” A cou-pay; well tah.
Martin, meanwhile, drives out to the desert and bumbles around on some rocks clutching a piece of paper. I think he takes bird-watching a little too seriously. He is about to hide the paper under a rock when Briggs shows up, somehow. Wow, he’s got a nose like a bloodhound. And the rest of him doesn’t look that great either. Briggs grabs Martin’s hand and looks at the piece of paper. Give a hoot, don’t pollute! Martin is transfixed by Briggs’ eyes. He starts humming “These Eyes” by The Guess Who, then beats the crap out of Briggs (about time someone did) and takes off.
Martin drives some distance, but even he (or, rather, his car) must heed the call of nature, and he pulls into a gas station. He has the attendant fill the tank while he goes off in search of the phone. Say what you will about old pay phones, but it was very hard to talk on them while driving.
While Martin is on the phone, the radio, which had been quiet until now, suddenly blares out a police report. KPLOT is on the air! It asks everyone to be on the lookout for a car which has Martin’s license numbers. This is all the radio says; that station has really seen its ratings soar after switching to an all-APB format. The gas station attendant matches the license number to Martin’s car. There’s another argument for self-service gas stations.
Martin is not having any luck getting anyone at his house to answer. He harasses the operator about it, like she can control when his wife goes to the lavatory or out shopping. He gives up and tries to pay for his gas. The radio pipes back up and the announcer describes Martin perfectly just as the gas station attendant is looking at him. Uh huh. Martin jumps into the car and takes off. “Hey, mister!” shouts the gas station attendant. He runs into the phone booth. “Operator, get me the police, quick!”
There is a strange montage of people putting little rolls of paper into pneumatic tubes. It’s suddenly a documentary on the banking industry. A police officer receives the tube. Oh, I see, this was primitive texting.
Out in the desert, Briggs wakes up. A man’s gotta know his limitations, Briggs. His car radio has been paging him. They give Briggs Martin’s last known location. Oh, I think Briggs knows where Martin was. “Stopped at gas station corner of Ridgefield and Mills Road.” “Roger,” says Briggs, But doesn’t he know that the Exxon station across the street is about five cents per gallon cheaper? The fool! Briggs drives off.
Martin is driving along a dark, deserted road. He sees two giant eyeballs in the road ahead. Oh, no! He’s going to run over The Residents! He swerves and heads into an intersection where the only other two cars on the road in the world nearly hit him. He skids to a halt on the side of the road, and passes out on the steering wheel, blaring the horn. You know what they say: keep your eyes on the road.
Some time later, in a hospital room, Martin is babbling incoherently. “They’re here...they’re here...” What is...Them? What about It? Or The Thing? Or These? “They’re trying to destroy us.” “He’s coming out of it,” says the doctor. Really? “It’s all right, Dr. Martin. You’re with friends,” says Col. Banks, who is flanked by Dr. Kruger and Briggs. With friends like these... “They’ll kill everyone! We’ve got to stop them!” Martin continues.
Doctor Clift injects him with something. “What did you give him?” Kruger asks. Botox? “Sodium amytal.” Ah. Side effects may include drowsiness, sleeplessness, depression, psychosis, lack of bowel control, heart palpitations, risk of birth defects, liver disease, chest pains, heartburn, heartache, headache, backache, stomachache, aches everywhere really, irritability, electrical problems, plumbing disorders, car trouble, unplanned pregnancy in men, a desire to listen to Lady Gaga, and death. All simultaneously. Use only as directed. Recommended by nine out of ten disreputable doctors.
“Truth serum,” the doctor adds, “to deprive the mind of any imagination.” Ah, so that’s the drug of choice in Hollywood today. “I bet you he’ll make sense now,” says Briggs. What are the odds? “I’ll get the recorder ready.” “Can you hear me, Dr. Martin?” asks the doctor. You’re yelling in his ear; he’s amnesiac, not deaf. “I want you to count backwards from one hundred.” “derdnuh eno, enin-ytenin, thgie-ytenin...” And Martin starts counting... [yawn]...excuse me...I think I need to take a nap now...
Now they start to grill Martin. “What were you doing with the information you took from Dr. Kruger’s vault?” Field-testing a new iPhone in a bar in Redwood City? “I was delivering it.” Ah. Huh? “To the rocks in Soledad Flats?” asks Briggs. Ha ha ha. “Yes,” says Martin. Doh! “Who ordered you to do this?” “I’ll tell you the whole story...” Uh oh, I feel a flashback coming on...
Yep, the invisible plane circling the bomb blast, the glowing object, controls jammed... “When I regained consciousness, I was on a table.” Curiously, it was in a Ruby Tuesday at lunch hour. He is lying on an ersatz operating table in some kind of dark cavern. Science-fictiony machinery hums in the background. And— Oh, boy. You know, this movie actually wasn’t bad up until now. A nice little mystery...and then we see the aliens.
It’s a race of Marty Feldmans!
“It’s pronounced Eye-gor.” “I could see something strange and eerie pulsating in front of me. Then one of them lowered it toward my chest. My own heart.” Echocardiograms were a lot more primitive back then. In a long shot, we the aliens using a blowtorch on Martin’s chest. Actually, this is my HMO’s in-network medical facility.
In the middle of his open-heart oxy-acetylene welding, he demands to know who they are and where he is. Wordlessly, he is ushered off the table and out of the cavern. Quite an underground complex they’ve got there. Eyes Station Zebra?
He is led to see what I guess the commander, since he is the only one who can speak, and his eyes are quite bulbous indeed. “Come forward,” he intones in that deep way aliens always do. Now we find out What’s going on. Who is this guy?
“I am a scientist, like yourself.” But has a harder time finding decent sunglasses. Where does he come from? “A planet as yet unknown to you.” So...not Eye-o, the moon of Jupiter then. “We speak every language.” Except French. Gotta love Rosetta Stone. She was an Italian supermodel, he was a bug-eyed alien....
“You can’t expect me to believe that!” says Martin, and tries to run. He was cool with having his heart removed, but aliens speaking every language freaks him out? Jeepers. “Stay where you are!” the Eye Guy says, and turns a knob. A sunlamp heats up, emits an ear-piercing wail, and stops Martin in his tracks. I want one of those things in my office.
I think the aliens have also set up their own inplant printing facility, as in the background is what sounds like a printing press running off hundreds of copies of their in-cave newsletter or something.
The aliens also have some groovy futuristic fashions from the Igor collection: tight hooded jumpsuit, a kicky cummerbund, and metallic bands to highlight the all-important elbow region.
Martin asks Eye Guy how he got to Earth. “Turned left at Mars.” Ha ha ha. Eye Guy cues up a YouTube video on his eyePhone. A bunch of pie plates flit back and forth. “In our machine propelled across the electron bridge we have created.” Electron bridge? “Electron bridge?” asks Martin. Good, so it wasn’t just me... “So you can come and go just like that?” He asks. What? A race that has mastered the technology of coming and going? Inconceivable!
“Our ships have been sighted on numerous occasions by your people.” Yeah, but mostly just drunk hillbillies. “We have a warning system similar to your primitive radar.” Eye Guy had to emphasize the word “primitive.” Why are aliens also so pretentious? Hey, at least we don’t have ping pong balls for eyes. As for this warning system, “Our machines are set to change course at the mere approach of a pursuing object.” So...a steering wheel, basically. Wow, that is advanced. And what does that have to do with an electron bridge?
“Let’s say I do believe you,” says Martin, granting the premise, otherwise we’ll be here all day, “where are we now?” Why is ascertaining where they are contingent on Martin’s believing him? Whether they’re from space or not, they’ve got to be somewhere! Says Eye Guy, “In a cavern, in the upper crust of the Earth.” Well, that’s accurate. Oh, and the “upper crust.” Tah. I told you aliens were always so pretentious. How long have they been there? “Since the beginning of your experiments in nuclear fishin’.” What? Oh, “fission.” But still... So, what are they up to? “We are accumulating the energy released by each of your nuclear explosions.” That explains the eyes. Sounds pretty efficient, actually.
Something buzzes. “Just a moment,” says Eye Guy, and picks up a sheet of used aluminum foil. They’re really protective of their cookie sheets. It must be his eyePad.
On the video screen, another big-eyed guy is standing outside on some rocks, speaking in what is either Swedish or the audio recorded backwards. (Actually, it’s kind of what I imagine Stieg Larsson reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo might sound like.) “What was that?” Martin asks. A Stieg Larsson audio book?
“A report.” Well, no duh, even I could have figured that out. Essentially, it was the results of the last atomic test. Or what Martin has been trying to get. How fortunate! “Results? But it will take days to analyze and compute.” Oh, Doug, do you really need to give them cause to gloat about their superiority?
“I think you will find these figures are correct,” says Eye Guy, smirking and handing him the aluminum foil. “So you bake on the dull side and not the shiny side? You are advanced beings!”
Martin reads what appears to be an Algebra I exam, and is dumbfounded. “I can’t believe it.” It’s not butter? “Where is that man?” he asks, meaning the guy in the video, I presume. “You don’t recognize the area?” Without Google Maps, he’s lost. “He is in the vicinity where you crashed.” Eye Guy then tells Martin that he didn’t survive the crash. “What do you mean?” asks Martin. True, the line “You didn’t survive” is not something one hears too often. Or at all. “The mechanism of your heart has ceased to function.” Funny, his wife often says the same thing. “It was necessary for us to revive it.” By removing it? “I was dead?! So that’s what they were doing.” He then adds, “You didn’t even try to save the pilot. Why me?” The pilot didn’t have health insurance. “We had an important need of your services.” Just some light typing, really. “Such as?” Eyebrow waxing. And lots of it. After all, big big eyes need big big eyebrows!
He then shows some more videos. The aliens are from the planet Astron Delta in the solar system Astron. Their sun started to die, the planet cooled, the vegetation disappeared, and “our eyes developed to this state to combat the ever-growing darkness.” This super-advanced race couldn’t invent the lightbulb? “You left your planet? Where?” asks Martin. “We invaded these neighboring planets that were closer to our sun.” Makes sense. “There were feeble attempts to stop us, but we were prepared for such contingencies.” But not for darkness, apparently. But since their sun is now in its final death throes, they must move again. They didn’t see that coming? They’re not good at advance planning, are they? Naturally, they’re looking at conquering Earth. “That’s fantastic! Over a billion of you, trying to come to Earth!” Taking our jobs and our womenfolk. Damn illegal space aliens.
They are preparing their invasion force out in space as they speak. “Nothing can stop us.” Uh huh. And the Titanic was unsinkable and no one would ever need a computer on one’s desktop. “This is ridiculous,” says Martin. Got that right. Martin takes off, but is warned that he will never find his way out of the cavern.
There then follows a long sequence of Martin running through caverns and big-eyed aliens lumbering around fiddling with equipment. He runs through the same passage about 500 times. Everyone pretty much ignores him. This goes on for rather a while.
Eye Guy soon gets bored and drops a cage over one of the passages. Martin takes off in the other direction. There is the sound of crickets and tree frogs (?) and Martin runs into two giant tarantulas. Well, that is, a cutaway of a closeup of two normal-sized tarantulas. Why are the tarantulas croaking like frogs? Then, they start making a noise like an industrial vacuum cleaner.
Martin takes off again down the same passage, and this time confronts giant lizards. Or rear-screen projections of normal-sized lizards. They growl like tigers. Really? There is also a giant cockroach (actually, it’s life size in New York City), giant grasshoppers (which Peter Graves will meet again in Beginning of the End), and other assorted giant mutated creatures. A giant lizard makes a noise that sounds like a lightning bolt. A gecko meows like a cat and eats a spider that moos. The cockroach sounds like bacon frying. I think the Foley guy got a lethal dose of radiation.
Finally, Eye Guy meets up with Martin at the gate and chuckles. (Or is that one of the creatures?) “I see you have discovered our menagerie.” Eye Guy opens the cage and leads Martin out. So, they made those things? “We are, you could say, breeding our armies.” What?! This is their cunning plan for invading Earth—giant mutated creatures? Good luck with that! “Those carnivorous insects and animals?” asks Martin. And there is a cutaway to some kind of insect that makes a noise like a sink being unclogged. I think with that lot the Earth’s population might die laughing.
“Their growth is due to a change in their genes.” No! Really? I may have to change my jeans if I see any more of this. “After the next nuclear test, these animals will multiple at a rate beyond imagination.” Sounds like simple math, really. And his comment is punctuated by a pair of cockroaches growling like lions. Yeah. “They will spread to every continent and devour every living thing on the surface of the Earth.” Like the vegetation, the disappearance of which on your own planet was the reason why you’re invading Earth. They didn’t really think this through, did they? “How do you expect to survive?” Martin asks. “We have provided for that,” says Eye Guy, pointing to a heat lamp. “No, doctor, look over there.” Well, why did you point to the heat lamp? Anyway, it kills the cockroach. “Their bodies will fertilize the soil and vegetation will rise up in abundance.” You know, buddy, if you got out of the desert, you’d see that pretty much most places on Earth there is vegetation in abundance. “Gamma rays?” says Martin randomly. Fluffernutter!
So, let me get this straight. Their superior plan to invade Earth is to unleash giant mutated creatures to eat everything, then kill the giant mutated creatures and have their bodies decompose to fertilize the Earth so everything can grow back? Is that right? Why don’t they just use the heat lamp thingey to kill the people? This is like if Rube Goldberg devised a plan to invade Earth.
“You see, doctor, we have arranged for everything.” Uh huh.
But wait, there’s more! They are also harnessing all the energy released by the atomic blasts and are using it to create a new element “that will never be known to your science.” Goofynium? Eyeodine? “This is a powder keg that could go up at any minute!” worries Martin. And that would be a bad thing? I mean, they detonate atomic bombs there! “I assure you, doctor, we have everything under our complete control.” Famous last words.
“You control your whole operation by electricity. Of course! No generators... You must be getting your power from the surface, by something passing through here...” Regular shipments of AAA batteries? “You have heard enough, doctor!”
All right, now we’re getting down to what they want him for. He is to sneak them information about the size and strength of the forthcoming nuclear tests. Really? “I see...You’re afraid of an overload.” There is some random babbling about holding charges...blah blah blah. “You’re a clever man, doctor, perhaps too clever.” In other words, he’s an apt pupil? (Get it? Eyes, pupil...oh, never mind.)
So, what’s in it for Martin? “It’s the only way you can save your own life when the time comes.” Ah. Huh? The idea is for him to be relocated to one of their space platforms and then brought back when the mutated creatures are done ravaging the planet. What a deal. Martin seems to give in pretty easily. “Well, I’ll have to do as you say.” Eye Guy has him sussed out. “You’re lying.” He starts singing, “You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes.” Well, maybe not. “Your only wish is to betray us. Your thoughts have been recorded.” Oh, come on, you didn’t need to record thought to have seen through that. He starts singing The Beatles’ “I’m Looking Through You.”
Eye Guy flips a switch and calls a space station. The video screen comes on and another eye guy appears. “Eye am” Oops... “I am Katala. You will listen and obey.” Not “look into my eyes”? It’s hard not to. Still, it’s hypnosis. Or talk radio. So that’s why the memory loss and the compulsion to follow their orders. “I will retrieve the data and bring it to the stone,” Martin repeats. I will retrieve the Stones and bring them to Lt. Data. Got it.
The flashback over, we are back in the hospital room. Everyone is stone silent. “Why doesn’t somebody say something?” Martin asks. Because they are desperately trying to keep in their uproarious laughter. Martin expresses concern about the giant mutated creatures. They humor him and amble away silently. No wonder no one uses sodium amytal anymore. Martin encourages Col. Banks to detonate another bomb and blow up the aliens. That goes over well. “You...don’t believe me, Colonel?” Whatever would give you that idea? “Kurt?” “Of course we do!” patronizes Kruger. Meanwhile, the doctor prepares another shot of something. Something big. “I’m not crazy!” says Martin crazily. He tries to get up but everyone restrains him. The doctor brings the shot over. I think everyone could use one right about now.
They all go outside and collectively shake their heads. Kruger wonders what he should tell Mrs. Martin. “Tell her he’s resting quietly,” says the doctor because, well, he is. “I’d better wait for her by the Information Desk,” says Kruger. Ah. Because he’s going to give her no information. Waka waka.
“Dr. Martin appears to be indestructible, aside from those hallucinations,” says Col. Banks. What? “Those weren’t hallucinations, Colonel,” says Dr. Clift. “Under sodium amytal, a patient loses all control over his imagination.” Um...is that really what you mean? Isn’t it more likely that the patient has complete control of his imagination, in that he can’t make stuff up? Says the Colonel, “Then he shouldn’t be able to fabricate those stories.” Briggs is nipping this conversation right in the bud: “Major, you’re not trying to tell us that everything he said was true?” He responds, “I can only give you the medical facts. The rest you’ll have to decide for yourselves.” In other words, leave me out of this.
That night, out in the desert, someone is hiding behind “the stone.” Briggs drives up. The frogs are very loud. Frogs? Do you find many frogs out in the desert? Anyway, it’s Dr. Kruger creeping around the rock. Turns out, Kruger wants to believe Martin. “I came out here to check for myself.” To check if he’s out there? “An entrance or an exit to those caverns he mentioned.” Or giant tarantula scat. Briggs explains that they have already searched the entire area and found nothing. That was quick. And...who, exactly?
By the way, isn’t that whole area completely irradiated by all the bombs they’ve been dropping? Should they really be walking around without some kind of radiation suit or something?
At the hospital, Ellen shows up and asks the doctor about her husband. “He’ll be all right. How’s the car?” What? The car? Is he also an auto mechanic?
Martin wakes up. So much for sedation. He has a vision of Eye Guy, and leaps out of bed, singing Billy Idol’s “Eyes without a Face.” He charges out of the room and sees an orderly approaching. Martin sees Eye Guy’s face superimposed over the orderly’s. This would be eyes with a face. Martin then becomes disorderly, but is restrained by Dr. Clift and Ellen. He is ordered back to his room. Martin insists on seeing Dr. Kruger, but needs some pencils, paper, and a slide rule first. And a gravy ladle, for some reason. Okay. The doctor dials the phone. “Can I have Doctor Kruger?” I need him. Badly.
At Kruger’s house, he is about to turn on the television when the phone rings. Dang, just as Lucy was about to come on. He is asked to come back to the hospital. He contemplates abandoning nuclear physics and inventing TiVo.
Martin is busy calculating...something...and ignores his wife. Just another night in the Martin household. She ambles out to the lobby and meets Kruger. She is happy that her husband is working—although I seem to recall she pretty pissed about that earlier in the movie. Kruger is curious about what he’s working on. “Whatever he says, just agree with it. Major Clift’s orders.” Really? Shouldn’t there be a “Do Not Patronize” clause somewhere?
“Kurt,” says Martin, “I know you all think there’s something wrong with me.” This gets Ellen’s attention, since she doesn’t know about the aliens and giant creatures. This should be fun. Martin says he doesn’t need a bomb to destroy the aliens after all. Ellen is curiously quiet through all of this. He indicates his notes. “Here’s the nuclear strength of our last test.” Uh huh. “And here’s the amount of electricity needed to control it.” Uh... Huh? “I had to estimate the conversion rates of their transformers.” I bet he did. Kruger looks at the paper. “If these figures are correct, such transformers must operate on a constant supply of electricity.” Don’t all transformers? Isn’t that kind of the point? “Where would they get that much electricity?” Martin has cleverly figured it out. “There’s only one way. They must tap it from the main line at the power house.” The aliens are getting their electricity...from the electric company! Wow! Inconceivable! And nobody detected this? I run the A/C for five minutes and my electric bill shoots up, but aliens can steal enough electricity to control a nuclear blast without anyone detecting it? And not a single lightbulb is dimmed anywhere?
The solution? “Cut off the power.” Kruger is aghast. “We couldn’t do that! It would cause untold damage for miles around.” Turning off the power would cause untold damage? Really? They never have blackouts over there? I’m jealous. “Such a major power stoppage would need to be planned in advance,” says Kruger. “Eight to ten seconds is all I need!” Apparently, it will “short out their resistors” and the whole place would go up. Yeah.
Martin takes off. Kruger tells the doctor to call the front gate and stop him. Clift thinks that over for a moment before agreeing. Kruger and Ellen charge outside, but Martin has taken the car. At the front gate, the effective guard has no luck stopping Martin by yelling “Stop!”
In Colonel Banks’ office, he and Briggs (and, by extension, President Eisenhower—Eye Like Ike? Or I Like Eyeke...oh, never mind) are enjoying a smoke, when they get the news that Martin his headed for the power plant to turn off the power. Turn off the power? No! The horror! Thousands will be mildly inconvenienced for ten seconds.
Lots of people jump into cars and head in pursuit. It’s It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World all of a sudden. “The money is under a big I.”
At the power plant, another highly effective security guard yells to Martin, “Hey! No parking!” Martin ignores him and charges inside. He wanders through the power plant, I guess looking for a big off switch. Is that... Oh, no! One of the guys in the plant is Coleman Francis, director of The Beast of Yucca Flats. And I don’t mean it just looks like him. According to IMDb, it actually is him. The chase through the power plant goes on for a while.
Cars start to arrive outside the power plant. Someone spies Martin’s car and feels the need to point out “There’s his car!” That’s really quite surprising, especially since there was never any secret about exactly where Martin was going. “Where’s the driver of this car?” Briggs asks the security guard. “He went into the building.” Really? I had no idea. I thought he’d be loitering in the parking lot, especially since Martin was quite clear about the fact that he wanted to go turn the power off.
Inside, Martin beats up Coleman Francis. “That’s for Red Zone Cuba!” Hooray! He then runs into an elevator. His pursuers are hot on his heels, and shortly after the elevator door closes, they show up and hit the elevator call button. After waiting for a while—obviously realizing that Martin is already ascending in the only elevator car—Briggs says “We’d better take the stairs.” No!
Martin gets an assist from a big sign indicating where the control room is. He finally finds it, and a noodly guy notices that Martin is wearing pajamas, a robe, and slippers, and asks him if he is sleepwalking. No, he’s just Arthur Dent. “Where are the switches that control the Soledad Flats area?” Martin demands.
I guess my question is why they would have power lines running out to an uninhabited desert where they test atomic bombs. Martin gets rough, but they are interrupted by the telephone. The noodly guy answers it and appears to be having quite an amiable conversation. Behind his back, he finds a gun. A gun? In a power station control room? Martin easily disarms him. He orders the guy to turn the power off, which involves deactivating several switches. There is also a “master switch” which he finally decides to turn off, too.
Meanwhile, the rest of the cast burst in and Martin threatens to kill the noodly guy unless the power is turned off. “Just give me ten seconds.” Can you really turn off an entire power plant and then turn it back on in ten seconds? “If I’m insane nothing will happen and you can do what you want with me. But if I’m right...” What?
And the lights go out. After eight seconds, the building starts shaking. They run to the window, and, hey, a giant mushroom cloud is forming right outside. It’s— What?!? A giant mushroom cloud is forming right outside!? Apparently, the power plant control room is on the 120th floor of the building because they have a great aerial view of the atomic explosion. The giant atomic explosion rattles the blinds a little. Talk about a room with a view. Jeepers.
“He blew them to pieces,” says...someone.
The end
Inspired by the aliens’ dippy plan, I have come up with my own idea for invading the Earth. I’ve planned this all out, and taken into account every eventuality. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
First, I’m going to breed a race of gigantic carnivorous vegetables and unleash them on the face of the Earth. That way, they will eat all the humans and other animals. Ooh, better yet, giant omnivorous plants; that way they can eat all the plantlife on Earth, too. Or...hmm...better yet, one race of gigantic carnivorous plants and one race of gigantic herbivorous plants, that way they can concentrate on their own individual ecological niches.
Oh, I suppose I’ll need something to get rid of all the buildings and other manmade structures, too. Not much point keeping them around. Until our horribly outsized, mutated eyes evolve back to normal we’ll probably not be needing too many windows. So we’ll need to have a rethink on the architecture. So a race of giant plants that eats concrete and other inorganic material (like fast food).
Okay, okay, okay (sorry if I sound so breathless, but this is all rather exciting), after all the native plants, animals, and buildings are gone, we’ll need to get rid of the giant mutated plants, so then we’ll create a race of gigantic mutated herbivorous animals, like cows and giraffes, and mule deer, to take care of all the plants. They’ll need to be way bigger and hungrier than the gigantic mutated carnivorous plants, for obvious reasons. Ah, but then, we’ll need to get rid of the animals, once all the plants are gone, and this is where our race of giant mutated James Garners comes in. he did those Beef Council ads all those years; he’d be perfect! Plus he was really good in Rockford Files. Then, I suppose we’ll need to get rid of the giant mutated James Garners, so we’ll have our giant mutated Mariette Hartleys all set to go. They will of course all have two navels. (Yes, we’re a terribly old, anachronistic, and obscure alien species.) Then, what to do with all the Mariette Hartleys...Well, nothing, really! Who wouldn’t mind a planet populated by giant, mutated Mariette Hartleys?
By this time, it will have been many generations and our species will have died off already. Still, it’d be a lot of fun!
Posted 07/05/10
