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Greetings, and welcome to VIEWING THE CLASSICS. Here you'll find capsule reviews of vintage movies from the early days of cinema through the 1970s, with a special emphasis on sci-fi, horror, and mystery movies. Be sure to check out the Pages links, where you can find a Film Index of all my reviews, links to the reviews organized by cast members, directors, and other contributors, and links to my reviews of the films of talented young director Joshua Kennedy.

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Wednesday, February 5, 2020

Invasion Of The Star Creatures (1962)

Starring Bob Ball, Frankie Ray, Gloria Victor, Dolores Reed, Slick Slavin
Directed by Bruno VeSota
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A pair of Army privates discover two statuesque female aliens are planning an invasion of Earth, and try to stop it, though they bumble their way through. 

In this very nutty sci-fi comedy filmed on a very low budget by Roger Corman veterans Jonathan Haze, (who wrote the script), and Bruno VeSota (who directed), a lot of the humor falls flat, but the picture still has its charms.  Ray is more or less the straight man (although he contributes a number of celebrity impressions), and Ball is his almost child-like partner with a high pitched voice and propensity for mischief.  In addition to them, there's a colonel who keeps setting off weapons in their briefing, plant monsters employed by the aliens that are grown from flower pots, and a cave set in which characters keep entering and exiting different levels in a gag later appropriated by the Scooby-Doo cartoon.  It's not really a good film, but Ball and Ray are somewhat endearing, and Victor and Reed as the aliens are very attractive and good in their roles, although feminists might object to the film's climax.

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