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Sunday, March 29, 2009

TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE






A young alien (David Love) falls for a pretty teenage Earth girl (Dawn Anderson) and they team up to try to stop the plans of his invading cohorts, who intend to use Earth as a food-breeding ground for giant lobsters from their planet. The invaders, who arrive in a flying saucer, carry deadly ray guns that turn Earth-people into skeletons.

A CLASSIC FROM RETROFLICK TV

TRIVIA
* The film's producers could not afford to construct a giant lobster, so only its shadow is seen - cast, no doubt, by a normal-sized lobster.

* Although Warner Bros. distributed this ultra-low-budget sci-fi film, it was definitely not a Warner Bros. production. The studio needed a genre film to play as the second feature with the Godzilla sequel it was releasing under the title Gojira no gyakushĂ» (1955) and bought this from producer Tom Graeff.

* Unable to afford time on a soundstage to film Betty Morgan's home, director Tom Graeff posed as a UCLA student directing a student project, and so obtained permission from an elderly woman to film for free in her home.

* The trim on the aliens' costumes is made from masking tape, and their space boots are men's dress shoes covered by socks.

* One skeleton was used for every dead body in the film. A hook/tag on the head and identification markings in permanent marker on the hip can clearly be seen on the skeleton in almost every scene. The skeleton also has curiously bolted limbs.

* The filmmaker was on such a tight budget that the film's ultimate weapon, the "focusing disintegrator", was actually a Hubley's Atomic Disintegrator toy cap gun, bought for a dime, with a flashbulb added as a beam. (In some scenes the words "Hubley's" can clearly be seen embossed on the side of the gun.) Atomic Disintegrators can be bought today on eBay for upwards of $300.

* Dawn Anderson, who played Betty, was actually a former child actress named Dawn Bender. Like most movie teenagers of the period, she was in her early twenties when this film was shot.

* The ZAP visual from the ray-gun toys was accomplished by a mirror glued on to the nozzle and pointed at the camera, which was hit by the "deadly" glare.

* The super alien apparatus with the dials was actually an old audio mixing device (from the days of the bulky vacuum tubes).

* The entire B movie is an extra on the 2005 PS2 video-game, "Destroy All Humans!". It becomes available once the main story campaign is completed.

* King Moody's movie debut.

* The night watchman at Station 86 is reading a book titled "The Flying Saucers are Real" by Donald Keyhoe.
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