It starts brightly enough, with pompous soldiers (including officer Brian Keith) and anxious politicians waiting for the return of the latest American astronaut… a chimpanzee. But then the action switches from the chimp to a less expressive actor, Tom Tryon, who plays a soldier basically forced to volunteer to go into space. The bulk of the “plot” is about an alien from another planet, the charming Danny Saval, persuading Tryon to make scientific adjustments to his rocket ship, so he won’t be hurt, and the security agencies (led by Edmond O’Brien) wondering what is going on. That’s a dull plot, full of holes – why should they believe this girl who says she’s an alien?
Tryon is a bland Ken Doll who can’t play comedy – Brian Keith or Tommy Kirk (who has a much too small role as Tryon’s brother) would have been better. O’Brien shouts too much and it’s handled dully. There’s also some agonising bad satire about beatniks towards the end – the cops haul in a bunch of beatnik women and they act like hop heads, yelling, and reciting poetry. (Question for film historians – did the number of beatniks sent up by the movies exceed the number of actual beatniks in real life?)
No comments:
Post a Comment