STRANGER FROM VENUS (1954)
Tagline: Couldn’t Fit A Tagline Into The Budget
(Sci-Fi, Psychotronic, Drama) [G]
Note – This movie did not originally have an MPAA rating, but I am pretty sure it would have been a G.
There is no pulse. There are two possible explanations for this; I am drunk, or you are dead.
In this one, a man from Venus shows up in Britain, and apparently, he is just massively good-looking because Susan North just falls in love with him in like two seconds. It can’t possibly have anything to do with his personality because he’s got the emotions and charisma of a slice of toast. Over time he offers a warning to the world that they need to stop all nuclear weapon development and thoughts of deployment. Otherwise, Venus will have to take action. Is it too late for planet earth?
First off, this is another one of those movies where the poster is massively misleading. It features a woman screaming and a flying saucer attacking an airline. None of that happens in this movie. While the dialog is interesting, this is mostly a romance movie with very subtle hints of sci-fi thrown in the dialog and then finally a flying saucer sighting at the end.
Just wanted to set the expectations because, given the title, mine were a bit higher than what we got. I never mind if the alien is human-looking, but at least throw us a bone on the sci-fi side of things. The first thing you might notice is that this is a lot like THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL regarding its plot but the budget is dialed so far back that the movie overall comes across as more of a drama romance than a sci-fi movie.
Regarding the casting, I can only say that it’s a bit odd that no one seems to have the right accent for who their character is supposed to be. The best role in this is definitely Patricia Neal as Susan North. No one can tell me that she doesn’t look like she could easily be Helena Bonham Carter’s mom. Helmut Dantine plays the stranger from Venus in this and I would be lying if I said that he wasn’t by far the worst part of this movie. I am not trying to be mean, but damn, talk about stoic.
The score is okay and the dialog is fine, but overall of the recent batch of 50’s sci-fi flicks I’ve watched, this has to be the least memorable. I wish I liked this thing more. The poster was great, the title was great, but that is about as far as it goes. Overall I can only give this a 2 out of 7. Patricia Neal almost rescue’s this one from the dreaded 2 rating, but it just wasn’t quite enough to have the entire movie lean so heavily on her.
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