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| Devil Girl from Mars’ statuesque Patricia Laffan proudly sports Ronald Cobb’s amazing costume for the Martian woman Nyah, comprising black vinyl, leather, form-fitting dark stockings, stylish boots, a shiny black skullcap, a flowing cape, and George Partleton’s startling contrasting makeup with dark lipstick. Altogether, she is the very picture of patronizing contempt (courtesy Wade Williams Distribution). |
I love this movie. If I had to choose a dozen movies to take to a desert island for the rest of my life, this would be one of them. Many will find this a disturbing admission. “How,” some people would wonder, “could a sane man, a competent author, say such a thing about this movie ... in public even?”
Those who are familiar
with this film will remember that the story seems to revolve around the
kidnapping of earthmen to take to Mars for breeding purposes—which nearly all
the summaries of the film focus on right from the outset. This point seems totally
puerile, the nadir of low-budget B movie, and utterly inexcusable in the minds
of most critics.
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| The spaceship from Mars. |
Let me list some other
reasons why some people
loathe this movie:
• It is stage bound
because it was adapted from
a play, and nobody took the time to resolve that
problem.
• The Devil Girl’s robot
looks like a refrigerator,
and her own costume looks like it might be a
remnant
from an S&M porn movie.
• The special effects are
pure B-movie bologna.
• The characters are all
stereotypes who do nothing
but talk and talk and talk.
• The devil girl’s
speeches are monotonous drivel delivered in a wearisome monotone.
• All the acting is second
rate at best.
Needless to say, I
disagree with all these arguments. In fact, I whole-heartedly believe they
utterly miss the point.
First, for all practical
purposes, that "collecting men" so-called plot is irrelevant. Little time and few sentences are
spent on the business of collecting men. It is merely an excuse for the Devil
Girl to act haughty and patronizing. This movie is important for its design—the
way it looks. It must be watched with an open and inventive mind to be
appreciated. Far be it from me to quote
the blurb on the back of a DVD package, yet this one happens to be 100 percent
accurate: “A beautifully crafted production, unique special effects, inspired
production design....”
For instance, the shots of the exterior of the inn (probably a model) are evocative of the time and place and weather, all of which play important roles in the film. The interior of the inn is totally believable. The alien flying saucer, while in flight spinning impressively and also on the ground, is one of the best ever conceived for a science fiction film. Only Ray Harryhausen’s fleets of saucers for Earth vs. the Flying Saucers are better. (I’ve heard it said that Klaatu’s ship in The Day the Earth Stood Still is superior to Earth vs.; sure, on the ground it’s nice enough, but in the air it is only a blob of light.) Devil Girl’s exterior set on the moor in the yard in the neighborhood of the landed spaceship is breath-taking (combining a soundstage set and backdrop of a barren waste with a few twisted trees, a practical ramp, and a stunning matte painting of the bulk of the saucer), much as was so successfully accomplished in an equivalent scene in Forbidden Planet.
The screen has never seen
such a being before or since. Bill Warren in his Keep Watching the Skies! ventures his opinion of her statuesque
appearance, “Ronald Cobb’s costume for Nyah was supposed to seem futuristic and
classy, but all the black vinyl, and leather, the stockinged legs, the stylish
boots, the black skullcap, the dark lipstick and the flowing cape put her
firmly in S&M territory.” As you’d expect, I disagree with Warren’s final
evaluation, but the rest is true enough. To my mind, she looks very cool,
futuristic, scary, and alien.
Then, of course, there’s her behavior. At all times she struts and marches and stands at attention with her head held high and stiff. She is never any less than haughty, firm, contemptuous, brash, sneering, condescending, arrogant, smirking, and patronizing. Her tone is entirely dismissive of these mere earthlings.
Devil Girl from Mars
(1954)
Post Script Re: Desert Island
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For instance, the shots of the exterior of the inn (probably a model) are evocative of the time and place and weather, all of which play important roles in the film. The interior of the inn is totally believable. The alien flying saucer, while in flight spinning impressively and also on the ground, is one of the best ever conceived for a science fiction film. Only Ray Harryhausen’s fleets of saucers for Earth vs. the Flying Saucers are better. (I’ve heard it said that Klaatu’s ship in The Day the Earth Stood Still is superior to Earth vs.; sure, on the ground it’s nice enough, but in the air it is only a blob of light.) Devil Girl’s exterior set on the moor in the yard in the neighborhood of the landed spaceship is breath-taking (combining a soundstage set and backdrop of a barren waste with a few twisted trees, a practical ramp, and a stunning matte painting of the bulk of the saucer), much as was so successfully accomplished in an equivalent scene in Forbidden Planet.
Special photo juxtapositions by Thomas Kent
Miller; copyright © 2016-2017 by Thomas Kent Miller.
On the left is a shot from Forbidden Planet. The foreground, the people, and the lower part of the spaceship (including the bottom half of the wide saucer) are real enough, but the entirety of the top half of the saucer and the night sky with two moons is a matte painting, On the right is a shot from Devil Girl from Mars which shows two people entering a spaceship by walking up a ramp; the ramp is real, as is the doorframe, but all the rest of the saucer is likewise a matte painting including the exterior walls surrounding the doorframe, the saucer element itself, and the down lights. (The Devil Girl saucer image courtesy Wade Williams Distribution.)
On the left is a shot from Forbidden Planet. The foreground, the people, and the lower part of the spaceship (including the bottom half of the wide saucer) are real enough, but the entirety of the top half of the saucer and the night sky with two moons is a matte painting, On the right is a shot from Devil Girl from Mars which shows two people entering a spaceship by walking up a ramp; the ramp is real, as is the doorframe, but all the rest of the saucer is likewise a matte painting including the exterior walls surrounding the doorframe, the saucer element itself, and the down lights. (The Devil Girl saucer image courtesy Wade Williams Distribution.)
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| The standard half-sheet poster (courtesy Wade Williams Distribution) |
As breath-taking as much of this film is—then there is the Devil
Girl herself!
Then, of course, there’s her behavior. At all times she struts and marches and stands at attention with her head held high and stiff. She is never any less than haughty, firm, contemptuous, brash, sneering, condescending, arrogant, smirking, and patronizing. Her tone is entirely dismissive of these mere earthlings.
Her entrances are the
stuff of legend. Many times she enters the barroom through the French doors
leading to the yard and the saucer, and every time it is majestic, dramatic,
and rousing. Part of this effect is due to camera angles that are mostly looking
up at her. Part is due to Patricia Laffan’s strong performance.
 |
Special photo juxtapositions
by Thomas Kent Miller; copyright © 2016-2017 by Thomas Kent Miller.
Two of Nyah's majestic entrances (courtesy Wade Williams Distribution). |
Warren also says, quite
correctly, that she “plays everything with a cocked, superior eyebrow,
impatient with these dreary Earth people.”
All that said, the Devil
Girl is stunningly picturesque. Barry Atkinson, in Atomic Age Cinema, describes her as “lofty” and “mouth-watering,”
terms with which I cannot help but happily agree. Above, I mentioned the
wondrous design of the picture. Clearly Laffan’s character and costume are at
the very heart of that design. Laffan wearing Ronald Cobb’s almost
unprecedentedly exotic costume and George Partleton’s fully appropriate
contrasting makeup is a wonder to behold.
The fact that following a
couple of these eye-opening entrances Nyah announces that she needs men to take
to Mars seems hardly relevant and not worthy of all the critical bother that
focuses on those silly statements (which inevitably end with the picture being
dismissed out of hand). Otherwise the film is practically perfect.
Frankly, all this seems
perfectly obvious to me, and I am dumbfounded that certain critics (actually
most of them) are so short-sighted that they spend so much energy deploring the
entire movie because they object to a few lines of dialogue or because they simply
don’t recognize the craft and value implicit in this picture.
Though it is clearly a biting backhanded compliment, the reviewer for the British Monthly Film Bulletin (1954) wrote that the “settings, dialogue, characterization, and special effects are of a low order, but even their modest unreality has its charm. There is really no fault in this film that one would like to see eliminated. Everything, in its way, is quite perfect.” That reviewer couldn’t be more wrong about “settings ... characterization and special effects,” but the last half of his statement is true enough. As I said, the joy in this film is its production design, effects, and Patricia Laffan’s performance.
As to the other
characters, they are all quite fine and well-rendered except Hugh McDermott’s
Michael Carter, who often seems hysterical. Plus I very much enjoy the amount
of time spent on the barroom set, as I find it and its roaring fire in the fireplace
calm and comforting (the antithesis of today’s omnipresent nonstop
chain-reaction car crashes).
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| Devil Girl’s exterior set of the moor in the neighborhood of the landed spaceship is breath-taking (combining a soundstage set and backdrop painting, which together "sell" the feel of the moor as dark and unsettling. This photo clearly shows the care with which the yard outside the French doors was designed; plus Nyah's robot Chani is more large and menacing than not (courtesy of Wade Williams Distribution). |
Though it is clearly a biting backhanded compliment, the reviewer for the British Monthly Film Bulletin (1954) wrote that the “settings, dialogue, characterization, and special effects are of a low order, but even their modest unreality has its charm. There is really no fault in this film that one would like to see eliminated. Everything, in its way, is quite perfect.” That reviewer couldn’t be more wrong about “settings ... characterization and special effects,” but the last half of his statement is true enough. As I said, the joy in this film is its production design, effects, and Patricia Laffan’s performance.
There are only two things
about this movie that disappointed me: the weak main title sequence that
features an airliner exploding in midair, a scene that has nothing to do with
the film, and also the extended barroom-type brawl towards the end that goes on
unnecessarily long.
One final point. Do you
remember the trick that screenwriter Edmund H. North pulled on us all in The
Day the Earth Stood Still wherein he introduced a spaceman named Carpenter, who
performed apparent miracles, who was betrayed by a member of his inner circle,
and who then rose from the dead? (A prank North readily shares with genre film
authority Tom Weaver for It Came from Weaver Five: “It was my private little
joke. I never discussed this angle with [producer] Blaustein or [director] Wise
because I didn’t want it expressed. I had originally hoped that the Christ
comparison would be subliminal.”) I think the same sort of thing is happening
in Devil Girl from Mars, but Nyah here is an unexpected and unforeseen version
of Mary. Nyah is one pissed off Mary, the polar opposite of the Virgin Mary,
Mother of God. Nearly every image of Mary shows her wearing a scarf covering
her head, but Nyah wears a shiny black skullcap.
.
.
 |
| Special photo
juxtapositions by Thomas Kent Miller; copyright © 2016-2017 by Thomas Kent
Miller.
(Nyah image courtesy Wade
Williams Distribution. The Marian vision image is from The Song of Bernadette [20th Century Fox].)
|
Where Mary endlessly expounds about faith, love and
compassion, Nyah is more interested in disintegrating poor specimens,
kidnapping, and the destruction of the innocent. Where Mary is often surrounded
by angels, Nyah has her enormous robot protector Chani. If wings are important
to your image of angels (or of fallen angels), Nyah’s rippling cape calls to
mind the giant wings wrapping the devil of Bald Mountain at the end of Disney’s
Fantasia. Mary is soft and modest. Nyah is hard and flamboyant. As another
point of interest, let’s not forget her flying saucer is made of organic metal
that miraculously heals itself. I am not saying that the writers, producers, or
director consciously or even unconsciously created this anti–Mary, but it is
nonetheless interesting to me that such an interpretation is so easily
possible. Also, while yes, I have specified strongly that the “snatching men
for breeding purposes” plot element is irrelevant and ought to be ignored;
still, if one were to give any credence to that notion, then Nyah, rather
unvirgin-like, was collecting men to inseminate her and all her sisters on
Mars.
Short summary: It is a cold wintry night, and in the large barroom of an isolated inn,
the Bonnie Charlie, on the Scottish moors, a radio announcer explains that a
meteor has fallen nearby. This is heard by a small boy, Tommy, and Doris, an
employee of the inn. Tommy asks, “What’s a meteor?” and Doris responds, “I
don’t know, Tommy.” We also hear that a world-famous scientist is on his way to
examine the phenomenon. The elderly proprietress of the inn, Mrs. Jamieson,
enters and curtly dismisses any idea that a meteor might be either interesting
or important and tells Doris to get to work and Tommy, Mrs. Jameieson’s nephew,
to get to bed. The professor, along with a reporter, Michael Carter, drive up
to the inn helplessly lost and bitterly cold. Even though the inn is closed for
the winter, they ask for and are granted accommodations. A white hot flying
saucer, making a great deal of noise, lands in the inn’s backyard. They all
busy themselves trying to understand what is happening while the saucer cools
down. Then with a dramatic and stirring entrance, Nyah, an aloof picturesque
woman from Mars in a minuscule black shiny skirt and a flowing cape, suddenly
appears at the open French doors of the inn, startling everyone. She announces
that her spaceship, which was bound to London, had a mishap and she needed to
land here so the ship can repair itself. She also explains that her mission is
to take back to Mars healthy earthmen to help propagate the Martian species,
because the inhabitants of Mars are only women. She then busies herself by
strutting around for a while, placing an invisible dome around the property,
making threats, showing off her robot and its destructive rays. Eventually, the
mere earthlings succeed in destroying Nyah and her spaceship.
UK. Danziger Productions,
Spartan Productions, Gigi Productions. BW. 1.66:1. 76m.
CREDITS: Director David
MacDonald. Producers Edward J. Danziger, Harry Lee Danziger. Script James
Eastwood. Based on a Play by James Eastwood and John C. Mather. Score Edwin
Astley. Director of Photography Jack Cox. Special Effects Jack Whitehead.
Special Visual Effects Bob Cuff. Editor Brough Taylor. Sound Editor Gerald
Anderson. Art Director Norman Arnold. Production Manager Jack Martin. Miss
Laffan’s Costume Designer Ronald Cobb. Sound Special Effects Bert Ross. Makeup
George Partleton.
CAST: Nyah Patricia
Laffan. Michael Carter Hugh McDermott. Ellen Prestwick Hazel Court. Robert
Justin/Albert Simpson Peter Reynolds. Doris Adrienne Corri. Professor Hennessey
Joseph Tomelty. Mr. Jamieson John Laurie. Mrs. Jamieson Sophie Stewart. Tommy
Anthony Richmond. David James Edmond.
In the first paragraph
above, I said that Devil Girl from Mars
would be among the dozen films I'd take to a desert island for the rest of my
life. Here are my two lists. The first is drawn from all movies; the second is
from science-fiction movies only.
From all movies:
Muppet Christmas Carol
Groundhog Day
Lifeforce
Final Countdown
Zulu
Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris
War of the Worlds (1953)
Lawrence of Arabia
Spartacus
Quatermass and the Pit
Devil Girl from Mars
My Fair Lady
From science-fiction movies only:
X the Unknown
Dune
Robinson Crusoe on Mars
Lifeforce
Final Countdown
Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris
War of the Worlds (1953)
Quatermass and the Pit
Devil Girl from Mars
Predator
The Crawling Eye
The Terminator
These are all chosen
because I NEVER tire of watching them!
.
.
