O Disco Voador

Here's a fairly obscure genre effort that deserves some credit for doing things a little differently. It's at least good enough to deserve to be better known. All in all, despite their limited budget, the makers of this B flick obviously strove to make this as good as it could be.

An honest-to-God UFO ends up landing in a remote area of Red China. An American mission is launched to find this craft, and attempt to exploit its technology. Then the Americans discover a concurrent Russian mission is under way, and the two sides try to set aside their differences and work together, under the noses of the Red Chinese troops nearby.

For a while, this has less to do with sci-fi and more to do with political / international intrigue, and has rather a slow pace. Dramatic tension is derived from the tensions between the two groups. But screenwriter / director Frank Telford, a TV veteran, directs well, and gets solid performances out of a cast that is better than usual for this sort of thing: Dan Duryea ("Scarlet Street"), in his final feature film, the lovely Lois Nettleton ("The Good Guys and the Bad Guys"), Bob Hastings ('McHale's Navy'), Bernard Fox ('Bewitched'), James Hong ("Everything Everywhere All at Once"), Nan Leslie ("Sunset Pass"), Andy Romano ("Over the Edge"), etc. Nettleton steals the film with her tongue-in-cheek portrayal of a Russian agent. Rico Cattani ("Point Blank") is also amusing as the Russian team leader designed to come off as untrustworthy as possible. Even John Ericson ("Bad Day at Black Rock") isn't as stiff as he's been in other movies.

Overall, this works as an interesting curio, very much of its time. While I wouldn't recommend that people go out of their way to find it, I'd also say that there are much worse movies out there with which to spend ones' time.

Seven out of 10.

The 1960s Cold War.... A flying saucer..... American and Soviet Russian teams in Communist China!

What on earth (if not from Earth) connects these seemingly disparate elements?

A test pilot is about to have his perspective on life irrevocably altered as he becomes one of the "more than 5,000,000 persons who claim to have actually seen unidentified flying objects" and for whom "no explanation is necessary" while "to all others no explanation is possible."

Some viewers might raise the point that the film feels more like a throw-back to sci-fi films of the 1950s and compare it unfavourably to such films as 2001: A Space Odyssey. Perhaps, but at least the film has an engaging plot with a good mixture of entertainment, action, pacing, drama and some humour. It doesn't seem to be laying claim to being a 'work of art' that's in search of a good story to tell and which could result in audiences nodding off or losing the will to live! And yes, the film is peppered with stereotypical elements in terms of gender and Cold War national and ethnic cliches, but so what? It is easy enough to treat it as a snap shot of a particular time in history and consider whether or not we really have made that much progress in almost 60 years. After all, we've yet to "meet 'them' face-to-face!"

I love older sci-fi movies but in my 67 years I had never heard of this one. I have never seen it on TV and have never seen it in any lists of sci-fi movies. As this movie is fairly well done-the color for example is very good and the acting is good and the story is interesting-I wonder why it is so little known? The main drawback of the movie is that it is way too talky. As well, the outdoor scenes were so obviously not taken in China and the saucer special effects were not great for 1968 but I've seen worse even for that time. Sadly the last film for Dan Duryea who died too young.

The budget for this movie was never going to allow it to get beyond the B level, barely at that. The cast and crew seems to have decided that despite the limitations, they were going to make an honest effort in a bad situation. They succeed in creating a movie that manages to be worth watching as a curiosity. Notable successes are some decent scientific references, the authentic Russian language, proper weapons for the Russians and Chinese and acting that is better than expected. There were some good people at work here. Inevitably, some contemporary clichés slip in (e.g. seemingly canned feminine screams, California scenery you have seen many times before) that date the film in a way that pulls it back into its B level pedigree. If you are a genuine movie buff, you'll probably like this but it is limited.

An original Sci-Fi! Frank Telford, the director, who signs the script together with others, did a good job, the movie is well done, the subject is interesting, the acting is convincing. True, the special effects are not great, the saucer looks like a caricature, it is clear that the production did not benefit from a budget comparable to that of Kubrick for "2001: A Space Odyssey", made in the same year 1968.