Devil Girl from Mars

"Devil Girl From Mars" (1954) looks like a strange cross between "Quatermass Xperiment" (1955) and "Queen of Outer Space."(1958). Then throw in a little of "Mars Needs Women" (1967) and "The Mysterians" (1957) for good measure. So if you don't like any of these films you might consider avoiding contact with "Devil Girl".

This is the earliest film I know of with aliens seeking Earthlings for breeding stock. It is played perfectly straight. Naya (Patricia Laffan) is an emotionless Martian space explorer. She has the Michael Rennie role here, but she is not visiting Earth for reasons that will benefit mankind. Still she is beautiful and her black leather costume and "Ming the Merciless" helmet must have caused quite a sensation back in 1954.

Like Rennie she arrives in a flying saucer with a robot. The saucer looks interesting but Chani the robot looks like a mailbox with a hood ornament.

It's one of a handful of 50's English science fiction films. It's real claim to fame is that it's the adaptation of a radio play. All the action (and there is not very much) takes place on the moors of Scotland and involves a varied collection of Earthlings staying at the remote Bonnie Charlie Inn whose proprietress speaks the immortal line: "While we're still alive, we might as well have a cup of tea".

Actually the film is not nearly as bad as its reputation. The film stock is excellent (at least judging by the 1990 Rhino VHS release) even if it does rely too much on wide master shots, with beautiful Hazel Court as one of the guests a few close-ups would have been nice. The production design and the special effects are more than adequate for the period of the film.

As a radio play the story by necessity adopts the remote house with an unlikely group of strangers dynamic. But it explores new territory by making a woman the invincible extraterrestrial visitor. She is a woman from a planet of women who indulges herself and the viewer with lengthy very humorous lectures on the inferiority of Earthlings. And she even expounds at length about the fusion reactor (probably films first reference to this) that powers her ship.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

At first you may think this is another fifties low budget sci-fi saga, the type Hollywood churned out by the truckloads(and still do.) The big difference here is the fact that its actually a brit production and that makes it rather rare. The English take their movie making seriously(sometimes to seriously) so the production values, writing, lighting, etc. are a notch above that of the typical Hollywood production.

The wildest thing about the movie is the alien babe who is pretty darn sexy in that freaky outfit she wears. The biggest negative is probably the robot who must have been made out of an old refrigerator. However, to the robots credit he has a cool disintegration ray. First his head lights up , a beam of light shoots out and anything it hits glows then disappears leaving only a bit of smoke. This is by far the best special effect and this technique showed up later on many American sci-fi shows including THE INVADERS and STAR TREK. As i recall from my childhood, the aliens glowing and disappearing after being killed was the coolest thing about THE INVADERS. The robot appears to be really huge also and that alone might have scared the bejesus out of its audience back in the day.

I can imagine that back in the fifties most people who put down their change to see THE DEVIL GIRL FROM MARS left feeling they got their money's worth and then some. Its still pretty entertaining. Better than most from that era no doubt!!!

Nyah(Patricia Laffan), a Martian woman, is forced to land her ship in the Scottish highlands instead of her intended target London but decides to continue her mission to select healthy male subjects, to be used for breeding purposes, to return with her to Mars.

There's things I like about this movie. I like the hulking robot, even if it is a little clunky and clumsy-looking. I like the spaceship with its unique spinning top design. I like the ideas at work in the film including an organic spaceship, a self-perpetuating fuel source and the whole inward atomic fission bit. I like the look of the outdoors settings. And I like Patricia Laffan's portrayal of Nyah as a sort of Martian dominatrix clad in black leather. She certainly makes a lasting memorable impression on the viewer.

Then there's a number of things for which I do not care. I don't like that the film is so set-bound and talky, with far too many grand opening the curtain entrances by Nyah. A large part of the problem with this film is they seemed to be, most inadequately I must say, trying to add a comedic element to the proceedings when our performers were far more capable at playing it straight. Hugh McDermott is particularly bad at delivering his often over-the-top lines.

This could have been better but I have to admit I enjoy it more than most others I know. I suspect Patricia Laffan's leather clad dominatrix has something to do with that along with the luscious miss Hazel Court.

There's no other movie quite like Devil Girl from Mars. It's cheesy and low-budget, unfolding like a stage-play ineptly filmed, with a script dulled by timid ideas and old-school misogyny. Yet in Patricia Laffan, the British actress who plays Nyah the Devil Girl, this picture presents a space-queen unrivaled in the annals of B-movie campiness. Her dominatrix boots and patent-leather cape, not to mention her highbrow imperious accent, easily outclass the features on display from those Venusian babes in Queen of Outer Space (1958) or the Martianettes in Flight to Mars (1951). And check out that Devil Girl headgear, a cross between medieval helmet and Egyptian sphinx! In silhouette, Nyah is the image of Darth Vader, striding about with cape swirling to do something unspeakably naughty. But before you conclude that Ms. Laffan's over-the-top performance is an instance of bad acting, consider this: there's no way to play a character like Nyah with psychological depth. The Devil Girl is a comic-book villainess, an icon, somebody who has to be bigger than big. Patricia Laffan is the perfect drama queen to meet the challenge. If you like her in this movie, be sure to see her in Quo Vadis? (1951), a glorious sword and sandal epic that also features the burning of Rome and the martyrdom of the Christians. In that film Laffan plays Poppaea, wicked Empress of Rome, opposite Peter Ustinov's even more formidable Emperor Nero. From bride of the Roman Antichrist to warrior-woman of Mars is just a small step -- or should I say, it's a small step for Patricia Laffan, but a giant leap for anyone else.

A couple things upon which we can all agree: At the time of this production, Patricia Laffan had an absolutely wonderful set of gams, and those gams were very nicely displayed by her Martian costume. Another thing we can all agree upon is that within the parameters of this very genteel English 'Invasion Literature' flick, there is a window into some of the kinky thoughts lurking within the very genteel English writer who penned this yarn.

Certainly, this is the one of the quietest and perhaps dullest of the Alien Invader films of the 1950's...the opening credits telegraph this when they tell the audience that this film was based upon the PLAY of the same name. That fact alone, that somewhere upon the British Stage in the early 1950's, someone produced a play titled 'Devil Girl From Mars', is a thing very amusing to contemplate.

So yes, this film is quite talkative, and filled with recognizable stage play types as our cast of characters, and containing a prominent subplot involving a romantic and perhaps redeemable escaped murderer...these are the elements that keep this extra-terrestrial tale unduly Earth-bound. Worse, there appears to be a kind of gentlemen's agreement in effect between the eponymous Devil Girl and her earthly opponents to avoid any serious attempts to overcome the other, until the last moments of the film. And after about the first 20 minutes of the story, it is impossible to stop one's mind from repeating the question: Why doesn't the Devil Girl simply liquidate these annoying people since they are of no use to her?

But weaknesses aside, it is impossible to hate a 1954 British B-movie about an outer-space dominatrix with fabulous gams wearing shiny black leather and visiting Earth in search of male breeding stock. And besides giving her credit for great gams, I should also credit Ms. Laffan for giving what is actually a very good performance, radiating intelligence and menace, and seeming to be both simultaneously prim and lusty.

Also of interest to scifi fans would be the flying saucer design, which is interesting, and the robot, which is not bad. Additionally, Gerry Anderson worked on this pic, as a sound editor, thus beginning his long career in British celluloid scifi.

As I said previously, this opus began it's life as a stage play. The same thing is true of the 'Rocky Horror Picture Show,' which also featured a black clad quasi-dominatrix from outer space, stuck in the English countryside. I have to think that the Devil Girl helped pave the way for Dr. Frankenfurter.