Starring Hugh McDermott, Hazel Court, Peter Reynolds, Adrienne Corri, Joseph Tomelty
Directed by David MacDonald
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
A spaceship from Mars lands just outside a Scottish pub, and the people inside are confronted by the Martian ship's pilot, a cold-hearted woman after men to repopulate her race.
Although the special effects might be viewed as long outdated, this is really a very impressively mounted picture, well-produced by the Danzigers, with fine direction from MacDonald. Based on a play, it never really seems stagey, and the photography and editing are used rather effectively to heighten tension and magnify the Martian menace. The spaceship, especially its interior, is a triumph of art direction, and although the ship's giant robot is somewhat clunkety, by interspersing closeups of its feet and torso instead of showing the whole suit at once for very long, MacDonald and crew succeed in making it frightening. Patricia Laffan, last billed, but playing the key role of the Martian invader, is perfect in the part, clad in a militaristic costume, utilizing a cool tone of voice and soldier-like walking style. Some of the ideas in the script are rather prescient, such as the idea of a spaceship powered by perpetual motion, and as Laffan describes the war of the sexes on her world that women won, you can't help but wonder, given the degradations and unfair policies women have had to cope with over the years, if such a revolution might take place in our future. MacDonald and the screenwriters also balance the sci-fi against the Grand Hotel-like character subplots rather well, giving us enough human drama but not too much to overwhelm the film.
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