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Revision as of 20:51, 4 February 2022 by 2601:300:4581:8a0:c14f:6ffd:e5a8:4ccf (talk) (broke up sentence structure; a few additional tweaks)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) 1957 film by Roger Corman| Not of This Earth | |
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 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Roger Corman |
| Written by | Charles B. Griffith Mark Hanna |
| Produced by | Roger Corman |
| Starring | Paul Birch Beverly Garland Morgan Jones William Roerick Anna Lee Carroll |
| Cinematography | John J. Mescall |
| Edited by | Charles Gross |
| Music by | Ronald Stein |
| Distributed by | Allied Artists |
| Release date |
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| Running time | 67 minutes (or 71 minutes) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $100,000 |
| Box office | $1 million |
Not of This Earth is an independently made 1957 American black-and-white science fiction film produced and directed by Roger Corman for his Los Altos Production. It stars Paul Birch, Beverly Garland, Morgan Jones, William Roerick, and Anna Lee Carroll. The film was written by Charles B. Griffith and Mark Hanna and was distributed by Allied Artists Pictures Corporation on a double feature with Attack of the Crab Monsters. Its theatrical release had a running time of 67 minutes, that was expanded to 70 minutes in 1962 for TV syndication.
The film's storyline concerns the attempts by an extraterrestrial humanoid to surreptitiously secure the blood of humans and to test it on himself as a treatment for a fatal blood disorder which is ravaging the population of his home planet, Davanna.
Plot
A man not of this Earth has adopted the name "Mr. Johnson" for moving among the populace of Los Angeles. The alien has a sensitivity to high-decibel sounds and is conspicuous only for his stilted and formal syntax and his sunglasses, which he wears even in the dark. The sunglasses hide his blank, white-eyed stare which kills his victims by burning through their eyes to their brains. He removes the blood of his first victim (a teenage girl who has just been dropped off by her boyfriend) using a system of tubes and canisters that he keeps in an aluminum attaché case.
Johnson is an alien from the planet Davanna, where its inhabitants have developed an incurable blood disease. He has been sent to Earth to examine the blood of humans for its usefulness in curing Davanna's dying race. Johnson is answerable to an authority on Davanna with whom he can communicate through a device hidden behind a sliding panel in the living room of his Griffith Park mansion. His bodyguard, Jeremy, who also acts as his chauffeur and houseboy, provides him support and protection, but is unaware of his being from another world.
Johnson hires nurse Nadine to look after him in his house. Her boss, town physician Dr. Rochelle, is under Johnson's hypnotic control after finding out about his patient's peculiar blood cell structure. With a limit on the number of transfusions he can be given in the clinic, Johnson takes to murdering locals and draining their blood. Adding to his victims are a strolling Chinese-American man, a sleazy door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman, and a trio of homeless male drunkards. The police are mystified by these "vampire killings".
Johnson's plans are disturbed by the unexpected and sudden appearance of a female from Davanna. While Johnson can command Earth humans through telepathy, even to the point of using their native languages, he can also completely communicate with his fellow aliens through telepathy. The alien female asks him for an immediate transfusion, because her physical condition is rapidly deteriorating. Johnson breaks into Rochelle's office, but by accident he steals blood contaminated with rabies.
Later, the Davanna woman collapses in the street, dying at a hospital. Nadine's friend, police patrolman Harry Sherbourne, tries to question Dr. Rochelle about the dead woman, but he is unable to speak while under Johnson's mind control. As a precaution, now fearing discovery, Johnson sends a bizarre oxygen-activated umbrella-like flying alien creature to kill Rochelle. He eradicates Jeremy, who has discovered evidence of Johnson's murderous tendencies. Nadine, whom he attempts to kidnap and take with him, manages to call the police as Johnson chases her in his car through the park. Johnson abandons her and flees, pursued by the Sherbourne riding his motorcycle. When Sherbourne turns on his siren, Johnson (to whom the sound is immensely painful) loses control of his car and dies in the crash that follows.
After Johnson's burial, Sherbourne and Nadine stand by his grave, which bears the inscription "Here lies a man who was not of this Earth". While Sherbourne expresses mild compassion for Johnson, for his motivation to rescue his world and its dying populace, Nadine refuses to offer any kind of pity. They leave, just as a mysterious stranger, wearing dark sunglasses, approaches the grave site. Like Johnson, he wears the same sunglasses and carries the same distinctive briefcase containing transfusion equipment.
Cast
- Paul Birch as Paul Johnson
- Beverly Garland as Nadine Storey
- Morgan Jones as Harry Sherbourne
- William Roerick as Dr. F.W. Rochelle
- Jonathan Haze as Jeremy Perrin
- Roy Engel as Desk Sergeant
- Dick Miller as Joe Piper, vacuum cleaner salesman
- Anna Lee Carroll as Davanna Woman
Production
Griffith said that after he and Corman had collaborated on the film Gunslinger, he suggested they make a science fiction film and Corman agreed; Not of This Earth was the result. He also said he originally wrote the part of the vacuum cleaner salesman for himself.
Griffth said the film "started all this X-ray eye business. Most of Roger's themes got established right in the beginning. Whatever worked, he'd come and take again, and a lot of things got used over and over. During the production of Not of This Earth, I was married to a nurse, and she helped me do a lot of medical research. I remember how we cured cancer in that script. Somehow the film was a mess when it was finished".
Props and locations
Griffith said, "Paul Birch was supposed to wear wraparound glasses, so you couldn't see the sides of his eyes. They stuck gaffer's tape on the sides of his glasses. You can see it if you look. In that film, I was in the scene at the newsstand at Las Palmas".
The exterior of the house in which Johnson lives was located at 1725 Camino Palermo in Hollywood; it has since been replaced by a block of apartment buildings. The car that Johnson uses is a 1955 Cadillac Fleetwood Series 75 limousine. Dr. Rochelle's office exterior is the now-demolished Hollywood Receiving Hospital, which was located at 1350 North Wilcox Avenue in Hollywood.
Release
Not of This Earth was released in the United States on the bottom half of a double bill with Corman's Attack of the Crab Monsters. According to Tim Dirks, the film was one of a wave of "cheap teen movies" released for the drive-in market. They consisted of "exploitative, cheap fare created especially for them in the newly-established teen/drive-in genre".
Griffith said that the double bill of Not of this Earth and Attack of the Crab Monsters made a 400% profit in its first week.
Some release prints of Not of This Earth run 71 minutes; these include duplicate scenes the film's distributor added to the film. Example: a dialogue between Johnson and a representative from Davanna, which appears as a pre-title sequence, is reused again some minutes into the film. This release version circulated in syndication on U.S. TV stations, on 16 mm reels, bootleg videotape, and DVDs.
Reception
Geoff Andrew in his Time Out review said "Low budgets give little reason for regret when the often tacky effects are surrounded by so much imagination, good humour, and sheer joy in film-making as here. Not of This Earth is a minor sci-fi gem, with an alien (Birch; you can tell he's an ET by his briefcase and dark glasses, establishing him as infinitely superior to the moronic middle Americans on view) terrorising Earth (or a small backlot) in his quest for blood for the folks back home".
Michael Weldon in The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film called the film, "Corman's most enjoyable science fiction film". The Aurum Film Encyclopedia – Science Fiction said Not of This Earth was "Marvellous".
Lexikon des Science Fiction Films said this about the film: " although not necessarily first rank, still belongs, bearing its low budget in mind, to the best science fiction films of the Fifties".
Remakes
- Not of This Earth (1988), directed by Jim Wynorski and starring Traci Lords.
- Not of This Earth (1995), directed by Terence H. Winkless and starring Michael York.
Home media
Not of this Earth was released in the United States as a regular DVD, a part of the Roger Corman's Cult Classics Triple Feature DVD box set, and in the United Kingdom as a single DVD. Foreign DVD releases exist in Spain (as Emisario del otro mundo) and Germany (as Die Außerirdischen).
See also
Notes
- The mysterious man at the site turns and walks straight toward the viewer as the end credits roll.
References
- ^ Alan Frank, The Films of Alan Frank: Shooting My Way Out of Trouble, Bath Press, 1998 p 36
- McGee, Mark Thomas; Robertson, R.J. (2013). "You Won't Believe Your Eyes". Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-273-2. Page 254
- Rovin, Jeff (1987). The Encyclopedia of Supervillains. New York: Facts on File. p. 259. ISBN 0-8160-1356-X.
- ^ Graham, Aaron W."'Little Shop of Genres: An interview with Charles B. Griffith'." Senses of Cinema, April 15, 2005. Retrieved: June 12, 2012.
- ^ McGilligan, Pat (1997). Backstory 3: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1960s. University of California Press. p. 160.
- Where Monsters Walked By Gail Orwig and Raymond Orwig, 2018.
- University of California Santa Barbara Automated Vital Statistics System, Table 4: 1960 - 2017 Historic Hospital List by NAME - AVSS
- ^ Weldon, Michael. The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film. London: Plexus, 1989.
- "Trivia: 'Not of This Earth'." IMDb.com. Retrieved: March 6, 2015.
- Dirks, Tim. "The History of Film - The 1950s: The Cold War and post-cClassical era, the era of epic Ffilms, and the threat of television, Part 1." filmsite.org. Retrieved: March 16, 2015.
- Pym 2004, p. 847.
- Hardy 1991, p. 390.
- Hahn, Ronald M. and Volker Jansen. Lexikon des Science Fiction Films, 5th ed. München, Germany: Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, 1992.
Bibliography
- Hardy, Phil, ed. Science Fiction: The Aurum Film Encyclopedia, Vol. 2. London: William Morrow & Co., 1991. ISBN 978-0-6880-0842-0.
- Pym, John, ed. "Not of This Earth". Time Out Film Guide. London: Time Out Guides Limited, 2004. ISBN 978-0-14101-354-1.
- Warren, Bill. Keep Watching the Skies: American Science Fiction Films of the 1950s, 21st Century Edition. Jefferson, North Carolina" McFarland & Company, 2009. ISBN 978-0-78644-230-0.
External links
- Not of This Earth at IMDb
- Template:AllMovie title
- Review of film at Variety
| Films by Charles B. Griffith | |
|---|---|
| Director |
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| Writer |
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- 1957 films
- 1950s science fiction films
- 1950s teen films
- American science fiction films
- American films
- Films about extraterrestrial life
- Films directed by Roger Corman
- American vampire films
- Films produced by Roger Corman
- Films with screenplays by Charles B. Griffith
- Allied Artists films
- Films scored by Ronald Stein
- Films shot in Los Angeles
- 1950s English-language films