Mort vient de la planète Aytin

Antonio Margheriti's THE SNOW DEVILS was probably the first of his GAMMA ONE films to be made though the last released in English and remains the most unique of the four movies ... though it may not necessarily be the most impressive of the efforts. My favorite is PLANET ON THE PROWL (or WAR BETWEEN THE PLANETS), with its emphasis on military jargon and space action. SNOW DEVILS is for the most part an Earth-bound adventure but is another example of Margheriti's fascination with hostilities existing not so much between the races inhabiting the cosmos, but battles between the actual stellar bodies themselves.

Some of the GAMMA ONE films are amongst the best pre-"2001: A Space Odyssey" science fiction from the 1960s but all are essentially potboilers with ready-made elements that are reused from film to film in the same way that Spaghetti Westerns were made. In spite of the release dates assigned by the IMDb (no offense!) the films were all made *simultaneously* in 1964 using the same sets, stock casts, musical cues, technical crew and basic story premise ideas. This has resulted in some confusion not only of the dates of execution/release, but in precisely which order they should be viewed when considered as a "series". After all, any story arc needs a beginning and an ending, you can't have four narrative arcs in a single story line existing simultaneously simply because it's impractical to watch four movies at the same time. You'd need four TV sets either stacked up 2 on top of each other or arranged around you in a square, with the viewer seated in a revolving chair. The question would then be which screen do you look at for any given moment? Which aptly illustrates the absurdity of the idea.

So where in the series do you start? My answer is with THE SNOW DEVILS, since it is the most unique of the four examples that exist in English (the other three being PLANET ON THE PROWL, WILD WILD PLANET and THE DEADLY DIAFONOIDS, amongst other alternate titles for each of them). My thesis on why begins with the look of the film: It does not have the polished sheen of the other three films and is literally the most "down to earth" and thusly lowest budgeted of the three. It's musical score by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino (who provided the scores for all four films) is the most unique & memorable: The scores for the other three films are more interchangeable and in fact recycled from movie to movie, though the energetic theme for SNOW DEVILS is only heard in SNOW DEVILS. We never hear that memorable refrain again in any of the three other movies, though some of the more incidental musical fills do pop up again (as well as the proto-Loungey pop song used during a lighter moment at a summer resort during the beginning of the film).

The space technology props are also more spare & "klunky" looking, picking up what may have been left over from 1962's BATTLE OF THE WORLDS and suggesting that Margheriti's skills in production design evolved as the series progressed (with PLANET ON THE PROWL being the most "realistic" looking, the goofy spacewalk scenes notwithstanding). SNOW DEVILS also has somewhat different costuming than the later efforts, suggesting to me at least that Margheriti's wardrobe department copped whatever pre-existing costumes they could get their hands on that looked futuristic, resulting in a kind of mismatched hodgepodge where the other three films are more unified in how the characters dressed. Star Giacomo Rossi Stuart's hair also changes between SNOW DEVILS and PLANET ON THE PROWL (he does not appear in the other 2 films). Here he is more of a coiffed blond though by PROWL it got darker & redder and had a more military look to the styling. Here he looks like he just wandered onto the set from romantic comedy where his hair was dyed blond. His Commander Rod Jackson is also somewhat less gruff & formal than in PROWL, where his barking of orders & dressing down of pretty female subordinate officers is one of the film's guilty pleasures. Jack Stuart would have made a fantastic air force officer.

One other aspect of the film that suggests to me that it was the first one executed is that of all the four GAMMA ONE movies, this is the one to which time has been the least kind. The Snow Devil monsters themselves come off as somewhat less than intimidating, the set design has more in common with classic Flash Gordon than Stanley Kubrick, and the emphasis on Earth bound set & location work makes the film feel more like a throwback to the 1950s than a vision of things to come. But since there is no specific documentation of just which order Margheriti himself had in mind when making them any such conjecture is mere speculation. I've asked his son, producer/director Edoardo Margheriti, for advice on this and his own reply was somewhat ambiguous, confirming that all four were made at the same time but that there is no specific order in which they are to be viewed since they all had different release dates in different regions or as different language versions. Just because this one was released later than the others does not mean it was finished last, nor does this mean that the others were completed after it. And since they were essentially disposable B-grade movies usually shown on a double bill with something else like it the release schedule was arbitrary based on the needs of the distributors.

Confused? GOOD. I have been puzzling over this conundrum of which order in which to view the GAMMA ONE films for about four years now and am delighted to pass the brain-twister on. Figure this one out with a formula proof to back it up and I will buy you an orange.

7/10.

In SNOW DEVILS, havoc strikes in the Arctic, and climate change ensues. This has to do with Yeti whom are actually hairy-armed aliens wearing Bigfoot boots.

Apparently, our planet is doomed.

Enter Commander Jackson (Giacomo Rossi Stuart), a man with the most glorious pompadour on any human head. Ever! Jackson is dispatched to engage the aliens on their home turf. He's humanity's only hope.

This movie contains: Absurd action! Ridiculous romance! Dizzyingly dumb dialogue! Catastrophic costumes!

The "special" effects pretty much boil down to miniature displays on someone's billiard table, and outer space models with absolutely no effort made to make them appear even remotely realistic. In other words, this is a must-see for the true schlock enthusiast. So, if you're a connoisseur of crap, this is your BEN HUR!

An astonishing achievment...

Despite a slow first half, "Snow Devils" is fun escapist fare. An intrepid team of spacemen/scientists led by wavy-haired Rod Jackson (Giacomo Rossi ('Jack') Stuart) travel to the Himalaya to investigate climate change (very prescient). As modern "climate-change deniers" claim, it is not due to human activity but is rather due (this they do not claim) to aliens who are modifying our climate to match their needs as they plan on colonising Earth. The aliens are somewhat greenish hairy men with very fake-looking huge hairy Hobbit feet, who are the basis of 'yeti' sightings (or "snow devils" to the locals). There is a lot of tedious trudging through snow and cave-sets before this is established, at which point the movie gets interesting as the team blasts off to the moons of Jupitar to attack the alien base. Typical of director Antonio Margheriti's so-called "Gamma One" series (named after the space station that appears in all of the films), "Snow Devils" is full of great, if not particularly realistic, looking miniatures (including lots of spaceships) and imaginative scenes of people floating in zero-gravity. In a surprising nod to scientific accuracy (in a film where the rockets all gout flames as they fly through space), the issue of time delay in radio communications is written into the plot. The acting is generally hammy (Stuart delivers some lines in a Shatneresque staccato) and the women are primarily decorative (but look nice in their tight-fitting space-pants). If you have seen other "Gamma One" films, expect some feelings of déjà vu, as the props are recycled (note the reappearance of the futuristic cars similar to George Jetson's (although not capable of flight)). Not exactly cerebral sci-fi but better than most Hollywood offerings of the same vintage and budget. Worth watching by anyone looking for an imaginative, colourful and mindless time-killer, but a must-see for fans of science fiction movies.

The fourth entry in Italy's "Gamma One" spaghetti sci-fi series does have a rather amusing story. When a weather station in the Himalayas is attacked, and its employees killed, intrepid space captain Rod Jackson (Giacomo Rossi Stuart) is dispatched to find out what happened. In the company of his faithful sidekick Frank Pulasky (Goffredo Unger), a guide (Wilbert Bradley), and assorted porters, they venture into the mountains, and encounter the title culprits: the yetis of legend, who just so happen to be aliens!

Series director Antonio Margheriti (who also co-wrote the screenplay) has some fun with the far out premise - for a while. While "Snow Devils" isn't as engaging as earlier entries, it's still goofy enough to work, with villains who helpfully give the audience and the heroes all the exposition that they could need. While it will strike its viewers as being cheap and cheesy (the Snow Devils are pretty tacky looking), it's this "quality" that makes the movie moderately charming. The performances are adequate from all concerned, and the ladies - Ombretta Colli, Halina Zalewska - are lovely. Enzo Fiermonte once again essays the role of the steadfast General Norton.

The problem is that Margheriti can't steer the story towards an effective finale. Things actually get too slow and too quiet instead of building up the tension and excitement. But at least we eventually get rewarded with a couple of explosions.

This movie does offer a reasonable amount of fun, even if it's not altogether satisfying.

Followed by an unofficial series entry, the notorious "The Green Slime".

Six out of 10.

Although Italy was known for sword and sandal films (such as the Hercules and Machiste pictures) and the so-called spaghetti westerns in the 1960s, the country made many other types of movies...including some sci-fi. "La Morte Viene dal Pianeta Aytin" ("Snow Devils") is one of quite a few sci-fi movies that were dubbed into English and marketed in the States. While the film would look like absolute garbage when "2001: A Space Odyssey" debuted just a year later, for 1967 the effects are actually generally pretty good...at least when they weren't using cheap and fuzzy stock footage here and there during the story.

When the picture begins, the temperatures around the planet are on the rise and snow is melting everywhere. An expedition in the Himalayas stumbles into the cause...some aliens who have been there for 100 years waiting to unleash their plan. What is the plan of these big, furry blue aliens? To flood the Earth and then quickly freeze it to turn the planet into a giant glacier, as that's the sort of temperatures these aliens like. And, since they also plan on taking over the planet, who cares what happens to the humans?! Can our intrepid heroes defeat the aliens at this base? And, if they do, will it stop the climactic problems...or is there another battle looming in the near future?

The film is modestly entertaining albeit a bit silly here and there. But for a 1960s sci-fi movie, it's actually reasonably good. Too bad the magnificent special effects with "2001" would soon make these Italian exports look mega-crappy in comparison.