The UFO Incident

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.

This movie is very closely based on the true story. I can attest to this, because I have a unique relationship to it. I was 9 years old in October, 1965, when our 4th grade math teacher rolled in the 21" TV to our classroom abruptly one afternoon, and displayed a live interview on local Boston TV with the Hills. Betty Hill described, verbatim, what the movie depicts, except she was much more detailed in the TV interview, which lasted nearly an hour. What she said was so impressive, I never forgot it for the rest of my life. She is the rarest of abductees, in the sense that she had a lucid conversation with her abductors. I believed every word she said then, and I have believed it for 45 years since, without the slightest modicum of doubt. As to the movie itself, I cannot imagine more perfect casting than Estelle Parsons and James Earl Jones. They were made for these parts. If you have ever seen the real Hills in an interview, the resemblance is uncanny. The film pays strict attention to detail and is well made. It took guts for these people to go public, and even more to make a movie that didn't distort the story to the tastes of greedy Hollywood execs. For a low budgeted TV movie, this is more like a superb documentary.

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.

This made-for-television film made quite a splash when it aired on NBC in 1975, right in the midst of a UFO-mania currently sweeping the country. Chronicling the landmark alleged UFO-abduction case of Betty and Barney Hill on the night of September 19, 1961, the film recounts the turmoil they both suffered for years after experiencing "two lost hours aboard a flying saucer" while returning home to Portsmouth from Montreal.

Adapted from John G. Fuller's 1966 book "The Interrupted Journey", the teleplay cleverly utilizes transcripts of the Hills' hypnosis sessions (which commenced the following year and continued for several months) to frame the retelling of their ordeal. Peppered throughout the recreated hypnosis sessions are intriguing flashbacks of the abduction itself, composed of moodily shot and fleeting glimpses of the confrontation, abduction and examination of the Hills by their alien captors. The presentation of their story is remarkably told in a straightforward, balanced and non-exploitive manner. In the last scene there is even room for doubt in the viewer as expressed by the Hills' doctor's attempt to explain that their experience may have been anxiety-induced and/or subconsciously suggested due to stresses related to their marriage.

Yet the element that makes "The UFO Incident" uncommonly excellent, particularly for a movie made for television, are the two tour-de-force performances by leads James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons. Their three-dimensional, full-bodied characterizations cover the full emotional spectrum from beginning to end. They exhibit utterly convincing turmoil, not only during and after their abduction, but in the several scenes displaying their personal doubts and fears about their interracial marriage and the potentially negative perceptions to their plight by friends, family and strangers. Therefore, it's really on an emotional level that "The UFO Incident" succeeds so well. Rather than concentrating merely on the facts of the abduction (a la "Fire In the Sky"), this film enhances the alleged incident by indelibly personalizing its victims.

Kudos should go to director Richard Colla, as well, for utilizing minutes-long takes during a few of Jones and Parsons' scenes together, allowing both of these top-drawer actors to build toward beautiful and natural emotional crescendos. Best watched without commercial interruption, "The UFO Incident" is easily one of the fifty best TV-movies ever made.

This was an amazing piece of work for the 1970's. James Earl Jones added such authentic terror to the role of a person discovering forgotten incidents in this life experience, that anyone who has ever forgotten ( and then remembered, realizing they had forgotten) will find this portrayal chilling and unforgettable. His description of the bunny is particularly remarkable...innocent enough to the mind of a child, or an impatient listener. The wife in the story, is played with such stamina and confidence that you could wish to be her in a time of crisis. the natural bravery and assuredness brings a sense of order to the story. Someone please report that this will be distributed for sale sometime somewhere!