Stranger from Venus

An alien craft is spotted, barnstorming the countryside. While traveling home, Susan North (Patricia Neal) encounters a strange phenomenon. Soon, a mysterious man (Helmut Dantine) shows up at a rural pub, seeming to have odd ideas and prescient knowledge, some of which is about Susan, who has gone missing.

He also has no pulse!

When the authorities attempt to make him talk, they find it... difficult. Things only get weirder when Susan reappears. Of course, the government / military gets involved, and nearly makes a pig's breakfast of it all.

STRANGER FROM VENUS, like its -very similarly themed- cousin, THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, is a more cerebral bit of cautionary sci-fi. No laser battles, monsters, or spaceship chases here. Dantine downplays his role, making the "miracles" he performs, and the words he speaks seem all the more believable. Ms. Neal is just as good in this as in that other, better-known film. Due to its budgetary constraints, most scenes are rather small in scope, making the dialogue quite important. This movie delivers excellent discourse and actually makes one think. Imagine that...

...as the British attempt to duplicate The Day The Earth Stood Still.

Patricia Neal plays the lead, but mostly appears as window-dressing. The alien looks like Helmut Dantine. In fact, he is Helmut Dantine. For the first fifteen minutes, we only get to see the back of his head. Unfortunately, at some point he turns around. He wears the same expression on his face throughout the entire film. I couldn't tell if it was boredom or disdain, both of which I felt watching his performance. It's hard to believe that men from Venus speak with Austrian accents - then again, it was hard to believe Arnold Schwarzenegger playing Hercules.

Dantine lands in the British countryside, although we don't get to see his ship. Neal has an accident and he miraculously heals her. He also heals a guy with a limp. Dantine strolls into the first bar/inn he sees and orders something to drink. We discover he does not like beer, but he loves water. He wears what look like jogging pants and some kind of pullover jacket. Fortunately, he is not wearing a spacesuit. I shudder to think of Helmut in a helmet.

Dantine is here to confer with our world leaders about, you guessed it, atomic energy. Of course, that's why he picked a farmhouse in which to stay. Meanwhile, two more ships are on the way to pick him up.

Neal's fiance, played by Derek Bond, is a bit of a pain, kind of like the Hugh Marlowe character in Day, just not as good-looking and not as obnoxious. The rest of the cast just go through the motions. Look for Nigel Green in one of his earliest screen roles.

Helmut Dantine stars in the title role and sleepwalks from scene to scene looking like he's just had extensive back surgery. This film is basically a ham-handed ripoff of "Day The Earth Stood Still" and "The Cosmic Man" only not as good as either. The running time is padded out with endless shots of slow-moving cars interrupted occasionally by in- action in the plotline. The direction as well as the not-so-special effects is amateurish (look for the shadow of the boom mike in one scene)and the whole thing comes across as one big bore. In short, this is the kind of film one should show to a blind date if one wanted to get rid of him/her. Why Patricia Neal (who co-starred in the excel- lent "Day The Earth Stood Still") decided to star in this lifeless yawner is a mystery. "Stranger From Venus" makes "Devil Girl from Mars" play like "Ben-Hur". 'Nuff said.

I found this slightly creaky old film engaging throughout. I really enjoyed the kind and gentle stranger and the genuine un-hysterical fascination for him by the locals. You must remember that this was set just after WWII when people in the British Isles were traumatised but jaded by all the things they had seen and been through.

I'm a huge fan of the brilliant 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' but I found a lot to like about this 'Alien-warning' short. No time is wasted and the story flows well to its tragic conclusion: Mankind can't be trusted to do the right thing!

It's obvious that the people making this film were trying to do a remake of the classic sci-fi film THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL only three years later. Not only is the plot very similar but it also stars Patricia Neal--the same lady who starred in the original film! Like THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, this film is about an alien coming to our planet to deliver an ultimatum concerning our ill-advised use of nuclear weapons. Oddly, however, he lands in the middle of no where in England--probably because it's obviously they have no budget and couldn't set the film in London or any other big city. You hear about the military, but you only see a few assorted guys in rather generic uniforms with no fancy equipment.

Despite the many limitations due to budget, however, the film is still very entertaining--even if you've seen the superior prior film. I think part of it is because the alien, played by Helmut Dantine, seemed a lot more like an alien than Michael Rennie from THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. This isn't saying Rennie was bad--just that Dantine offered a unique interpretation. The other thing I liked is that instead of the humans attacking by mistake, in this film the leaders from the UK are real jerks. Despite the Venusians coming with openness and peace, the officials responded with lies and a foolish attempt to steal their space ship!! As a result, this film takes an even more cynical view of human nature. In the original, humans were scared and a bit dumb. Here, they're just jerks! The final thing I loved about the film is that they didn't try too hard with the special effects. Other than a model of a space ship, the film has no bug-eyed alien or silly ray gun--just a dandy story.

So, despite being extremely derivative, the film still is entertaining thanks to good acting and a few interesting twists.

By the way, in a silly little scene, one "expert" said that Venus is "many light-years away from the Earth". No, dude, it isn't. A single light year is about 6 trillion miles. Venus is actually about 25 million miles. So, a light year is 240,000 times greater than the distance to Venus AND they said "many light-years"! I am surprised the writers didn't notice this discrepancy. Wow. I now feel like Mr. Wizard!