Begegnung aus dem Nichts

I first vievved this movie several years ago on a Cable television channel. I vvas so pleased vvith the acting abilities of James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons vvho play Betty and Barney Hill that I sought the movie to tape record it. I am still trying to catch it. The impression it made on me vvas a strong one. It vvas full of highly emotional drama. And it made me respect James Earl Jones all the more. Estelle Parson did a vvonderful job playing the vvife. Both characters vvere stretched and there vvas a lot of dialogue. Not too much action. But there really vvasn't need for action vvhen your glued to the screen vvaiting to hear vvhat the characters vvill say next of their tramatic experience. The dialogue and outpouring emotions vvas the action. This is a vvonderful movie. I'd really like to see it again.

First of all, even though I'm a "UFO buff" (depending on how you use that term), I'm tired of many sides of the whole subject, because it's been such a huge, huge pop culture subject for such a long while, and between the believers and the disbelievers (especially the latter, really), you can't get away from it. But, you don't have to like the subject A BIT (either as a believer or a disbeliever) to like this movie. You can watch it as a "docu-drama" (one that came along before the whole docu-drama craze), about how this couple dealt with the whole situation (regardless of what you believe that was). Or you can watch it as a regular "scary story" (it works entirely well as that). And of course, you CAN watch it for the UFO subject itself, especially since it's one of the most famous stories. One of the great things about the Betty and Barney story is that it sticks a pin in the whole "abducted hillbilly" idea (which, even if it weren't such a huge generalization, is such really, really overworked joke). Here's a "mixed marriage," in New England, both people intellectuals. And of course it has three very great actors (one a little less well-known by name than the other two). Estelle Parsons and James Earl Jones draw you completely into the whole thing, especially during the "regressions." And Barnard Hughes as the doctor (he'd played a few doctors already by then), was just right also.

I saw this on TV when it came out- It was one of those stories that really affected me because somehow, I could feel the truth of it. This was probably the very first abduction story that I felt had any validity. Compared to other UFO stories I have read or seen movies of. I highly enjoyed "fire in the sky", but that movie was more Hollywood than actual. And, it has been partially remade in the recent movie "The Recall", which has a scene inside of the UFO craft which mirrors what was done for fire in the sky. there were other movies, "communion", but that story did not affect me as much as this one.

20 years after I watched that TV movie in 1975, I was in a halfway house. With nothing much to do, I rummaged through a library of old books and I came across something that was called "the interrupted journey". And when I touched that book- before I even opened it, I knew that this must be the book that told that original story. I had never heard of it before even though I had seen a film based upon it.

I think "the interrupted journey" is a much better name than "the UFO incident"

The film is your basic made-for-television fare, kind of the same quality as those NBC (was it NBC?) "movies of the week", or anything else that fits into the approximate One hour and 32 minutes allotted for a "two hour" television movie.

And even though it had been 20 years since I had seen this movie, I had remembered all of the details of the movie and I was very surprised that the book had been honored and that they kept to the basic story.

The book had documents and images so I was able to get a real face for the Hills. And there were things that Betty Hill had drawn and I was able to look at those.

I have not seen this movie since 1975, I hope that I am able to find it somewhere.

James Earl Jones gives a memorable, highly sympathetic performance as Barney Hill, and Estelle Parsons as his wife Betty matches him, moment for moment.

This is a harrowing tale, based on a true story (one which heralds the modern era of alien abduction accounts). Barnard Hughes is entirely believable as the psychiatrist who tries to help the couple. The "special effects" are refreshingly not-so-special, the absolutely outrageous events depicted un-hysterically in flashbacks. I loved the entities' eyes: human-seeming, with pupils and whites but magnified, as if covered with big lenses--highlighting one distinction between the Hills' descriptions and all those more recent "grays" with their huge, oval, entirely black eyes. The treatment is intelligently grounded in the reality of the couple's seeking help for their anxieties and sleeplessness ( their initial focus) rather than the "sci-fi" elements of the story.

And not since Edna Mae Oliver bawled the name of her dead husband Barney in "Drums Along The Mohawk" (1939) has there been heard anywhere a more New Englandy pronunciation of that name than Ms. Parsons delivers here!!

The UFO Incident was one of the hardest movies for me to see. I remember when it first aired, I had to be at a Boy Scout meeting, so I missed it (back in those pre-VCR days). The second chance I had to see it had the station broadcasting it go off the air for a half-hour, and then come back on with a completely fuzzed out picture, so again I couldn't watch the film. I procured a copy last month, and then I lost the bloody tape. I managed to finally get another and FINALLY got to watch the damn thing.

Well, it really was worth the wait. James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons give very believeable and very moving performances as a married couple beset by completely strange and frightening circumstances. Even if you don't believe in the alien abduction phenomenon that has become so widespread after the big-budget version of Whitley Streiber's Communion, you've got to admire the acting abilities of both stars in this movie. You can definitely feel the pain and confusion that Barney and Betty Hill went through in their performances (particularly Jones, who I think accurately encapsulates all of the pent-up frustrations that Barney Hill was reputed to have, though he did so in a decidedly non-stereotypical way - Barney wasn't your average "Angry Black Man" of the seventies).

I suppose because of Communion (and the recent Signs) one might chuckle a bit at the alien visitors in this movie, but one has to remember that this was a made-for-TV movie and I think the production values put it on a par with any of the contemporary science fiction or horror films of the time period. One also has to remember this movie was made before that famous cover of Communion was published, so the aliens don't quite look like the willowy Greys that most folks have come to associate with the phenomenon.

This is a film definitely worth searching out. Sci-Fi Channel apparently shows it now and again, so that's your best bet, outside of the internet trading circles (which is where I got my copy).