Weirdhouse Cinema: Devil Girl From Mars

This week on Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss the 1954 Scottish sci-fi film “Devil Girl From Mars,” featuring a fashionable Martian queen, her robot Chani and interplanetary intrigue on the Scottish moors.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of My
Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This
is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today
we're going to be taking a look at a nineteen
fifty four science fiction movie called Devil Girl from Mars,

(00:26):
a movie about people who are obsessed with liquor, who
in fact are in many cases even named after liquors,
and who are gather in a rural inn in Scotland
to be attacked by an evil Martian boss lady who
wants to kidnap and dominate Scottish men. Yes, that's right,
fans of Weird How Cinema may feel an inkling of

(00:47):
of a memory that this is in fact the second
movie we've done with this exact plot, the plot of
women from another planet within our Solar system are running
out of men and must come to Earth to steal
our precious earth hunks. Uh. The other one was the
lighthearted Mexican romantic musical horror comedy Ship of Monsters from

(01:10):
nineteen sixty and that one was such a delight I
still remember that so fondly. I think Devil Girl from
Mars is also a delight, but in a very different way.
Ship of Monsters is uh is clever, spunky, charming, intentionally funny,
and made with this infectious sense of whimsy. Devil Girl
from Mars is the exact opposite. It is made hilarious

(01:33):
by virtue of its absurd self seriousness. Yeah. Yeah, this
is not a lighthearted musical romp uh that it's It's
still a lot of fun and has some great design
work in it, because that was one of the things
we loved about about about the Ship of Monsters has
some great monster designs, some great costumes, and we we

(01:55):
have we have some of that going on in Devil
Girl from Mars as well. But also there is no
character and Devil Girl from Mars like Lolo Gonzales and
Ship of Monsters you know, with the twinkle in his
eye and the funny songs and all that. No, this
is a movie mostly about men who are very serious
about staying on Earth. Yeah. And none of the male
performers are actually that interesting, either in their in their

(02:18):
careers or or in their performances here at least I
didn't find them so. But the but, but the female
performers are pretty great. Uh. The titular devil girl from Mars,
I think is clearly the star of the show. My
initial reaction to this when I started watching it. I
got about twenty minutes in and I was like, I
don't know if this is all that great. Maybe this

(02:39):
movie is really going to be kind of a drag.
But then the moment the Martian shows up, the movie
kicks into high gear immediately. Yeah, I agree that that
you warned me about the first twenty minutes, and the
first twenty minutes of this film are indeed quite slow. Um,
and that are not all that fantastic. So um yeah,
so definitely know that going into the film. But we

(03:00):
mentioned Scottish, uh as much as anything is purely a
Scottish film, I guess this is kind of our first
Scottish film on Weird House Cinema, right, I can't think
of another one. And it's also it's not incidentally Scottish
is not just like made by Scott's. This is very
much set in Scotland, right right. I think you can

(03:21):
you can maybe get into the production credits and say like, well,
it's more basically a British production basically in production. But yeah,
a lot of Scottish talent involved in this picture and
said in Scotland right. Uh. This film also has a
very interesting indirect role in the history of science fiction
literature because it was apparently an early point of inspiration,

(03:45):
a sort of anti inspiration, for the great science fiction
author Octavia Butler. I found a transcript of a talk
she delivered. It m I t in about the role
of media like movies and TV in the history of
sci fi um and she she goes over a bunch
of different topics in the speech, but one of the

(04:05):
first things she does is talk about seeing this movie
when she was a kid. So I want to read
her quote from the speech. She says, it's impossible to
begin to talk about myself in the media without going
back to how I wound up writing science fiction, and
that is by watching a terrible movie. The movie was
called Devil Girl from Mars, and I saw it when

(04:26):
I was about twelve years old, and it changed my life.
It was one of those old nineteen fifties movies in
which the beautiful Martian woman arrives on Earth to announce
that all of the Martian men have died off and
there were a bunch of man hungry women up there
and the earthmen don't want to go. And as I
was watching this film, I had a series of revelations.
The first was that geez, I can write a better

(04:48):
story than that, And then I thought, gee, anybody can
write a better story than that. And my third thought
was the clincher, somebody got paid for writing that awful story.
So I was often writing, and a year later I
was busy submitting terrible pieces of fiction to innocent magazines.
I found this story so beautiful. Yeah, it's a that's fun.

(05:11):
I wasn't aware of this connection. And uh and and indeed,
this is essentially I think one of the things that
I've always enjoyed about films of this nature. Not that
I mean there have been times where I've been inspired
to write something based on on on a on a
less than stellar plot in a film or something, but
more often than not, it's just like you're watching a film.

(05:34):
There are spaces in it, spaces that yes that it's
not only like could this be improved, but what if
this world was improved? And so there there's this like
there's this film, there's this skeleton within the film, and
then you sort of apply the meat to that skeleton
with your own imagination, either in a in a product
based um creative endeavor, or just in the mindscape of

(05:58):
enjoying the film totally. I I have long been of
the opinion that if you're trying to study a creative
art you can learn just as much or even more
by studying bad examples of that art form as you
can from studying good examples. Like when you see the
bad Ones, it gives you a kind of analytical confidence.
You can understand how when when things aren't working. Now,

(06:21):
there's a lot that does work in this film, though
at least from a from a design standpoint. Uh As
we'll get into there's there's there's there's at least one
amazing costume, there's a there's some cool sets, there's a
there's a cool robot, and and there are some times
where there's a lot of technobabble, as we'll discuss. But occasionally,
as our alien visitor is talking about conditions back home

(06:44):
and laying down a little um world building, some of
it does, you know, kind of get you get at
least got my mind rolling. It's like, I wonder what
this this gender war was, Like? How did all the
Martian men die, you know, and you know that they're
not they're they're not feeling on all the details for you,
but they're giving you, like a few visuals, some some
sites and sounds, some ideas, and then your brain kind

(07:04):
of sketches in the rest of it. And uh, and
that's that's something I always enjoy about a film like
this totally. I was actually I was tempted to start
asking genuinely interested questions about the War of the Sexes
that took place on Mars. I was like, well, where
they're like where they're like people on Mars who fell
in love and they were like traitors to their to

(07:24):
their side in the War of the Sexes? That I
don't know. Yeah, it raises a lot of questions you
probably shouldn't think too literally about at all. I know
that this isn't the only work of fiction to to
contemplate such a thing, so I guess, you know, metaphorically
at least it Uh, it's it's useful in um in fiction.
You know that this plot differs somewhat from the premise

(07:47):
of Ship of Monsters and Ship of Monsters the Aliens
or one of the aliens. It comes from Venus and
the problem is that on Venus, the men all destroyed
each other with atomic wars. So so the men they
got nuclear weapons and they killed all the other men.
So Venus has no men left, so it was an

(08:07):
intra sex dispute. The men killed each other on on Venus.
In this movie, it is that the women of Mars
went to war with the men of Mars and killed them.
I don't know if that's significant anyway. Maybe not. Well,
I guess she is supposed to have sort of a
black widow kind of vibe to her. In fact, there
is this part rather clumsily where one of the child

(08:30):
the child characters what's his name, Tommy, Tommy, Yes, Tommy's like,
you were like that spider and that my dad sees
in the barn or something like that, you know, basically saying, oh,
you're like a black widow spider, and it's kind of like, yeah,
that's yes, that's part of what they're going for with
the black costume, and you know this, and it's kind
of a trope and a stereotype of like a feminine

(08:51):
power in films like this. Yeah, I think the character
is written in a way that is supposed to strike
terror in the hearts of a nineteen fifties male in
the way that she is at least I think the
way she's supposed to be received is as like very
beautiful but also very like cold and rational and calculatingly evil. Yeah,
and it's definitely portrayed in a way that is I

(09:14):
would say, um what sexually ahead of her time? Um
Like I was reading about this this film in um
in Michael Weldon's Sucotronic books that summarizes this, he writes, quote,
the alien herself is a real vision in boots, black tights,
padded shoulders cape and a shiny black skull cap. The
stuffy British males actually want to stay in England, which

(09:38):
is great, though not in England. They are in Scotland.
I guess a couple of them are from England and
stuck in Scotland and others are from Scotland. But whatever
the case. Yeah, they for some reason do not want
to return to Mars with her and become part of
like a captive earthling breeding program. Right. But then, I
mean I was also thinking this whole time. I was like, like,
if they were excited to go, they would get to

(10:00):
Mars and they'd find out that their participation in the
breeding program involves being like hooked up in a tank
somewhere and having their brain removed or something. Um So,
which would I think would have been fitting? That would
have been a nice um like. I don't know if
that would be a maybe be a nineties outer limits ending. Oh,
that would be a good twist if like the character
who goes as very like over eager young man um.

(10:25):
But I was thinking the other twist given that like
they didn't the Martians didn't realize Earth was gonna have
a thick atmosphere, so when they got here, you know,
they had trouble landing. It makes me think, well, what
if they get the Earthlings back to Mars and they
don't realize that Earthlings need to breathe oxygen, so as
soon as they get there, it's just suffocation. We gotta
go back for more. Now, I think we've already done

(10:45):
the elevator pitch, so maybe we can skip that. But
we've got to hear some trailer audio. All right, let's
do it. We saw this with our own eyes, and
object the like of which we had never seen before.
A frightening, strange sheep descending from outer space with relentless putts.
Where did it come from? And God? Did it want

(11:06):
to the Us? How I've ever seen before? Hellon? Would
you mean hello? Hello? It's like something from row flat
to do not try to follow me. You cannot get
help around it. Yes, I've drawn an invisible walls through

(11:28):
which no one may pass. Here is a news reporter
with a world shattering storm, a girl trying to escape
from her posts, the scientist trapped in spite of his knowledge.
And here also is the barmaid hiding a murderers secret,
a murderer with a life already off it, and introducing
the devil girl from Mars herself. Got back on, fireful,

(11:53):
get back, shoot one shoot alright, alright, sounds pretty good.

(12:19):
Let's see. So there are a bunch of places you
can watch this one. I think I just streamed it
on Amazon. Yeah, I I rented it through through Prime.
You can stream or buy it wherever you get your
digital movies. It also looks like you can stream it
um via film Movement uh flicks fling uh some other places.
And I should also point out that there have been

(12:39):
some basic physical releases as well, but also Bridget and
Mary Joe covered it on riff tracks, so I haven't
actually experienced their riff of the film, but I've I've
very much enjoyed Bridget and Mary Joe's riffing in the past,
so I bet they do a good job with this one.
There's a there's all, there's a lot of stuff to
to have fun with here. Yeah, I've got to watch

(13:00):
that now. All right, Well, let's get into the various humans,
mostly Scottish humans, involved in the creation of this picture, alright.
Starting at the top, we have director David McDonald born
nineteen o four and died in nineteen eighty three, Scottish
born director who at one point worked under Cecil B.
De Mill in the US as a production assistant. This

(13:22):
would have been like the late nineteen twenties and I
guess early thirties, uh, basically an apprenticeship. Before returning back
to the UK. He worked with the Crown Film Unit
during World War Two to produce morale boosting pictures. And
I've seen this film referred to as a career low point. Uh.
And certainly he seems to have maybe been more successful

(13:44):
during his lifetime with various other film and TV projects,
most of which I'm not familiar with. I don't think
he did much in the way of sci fi or
horror outside of this film. For instance, his most noteworthy
films seem to have been ninety seven, The Brothers, ninety eight,
Christopher Columbus in the nine seven Swashbuckler, The Moonraker, The Moonraker. Yeah, no,

(14:05):
no connection or at least um, I don't know. Maybe
maybe Moonraker has something to do with the plot of
this fifty seven Swashbuckler. I'm not sure. So when I
was watching the credits for this movie, one of the
weirdest things I noticed was the credit indicating that this
is somehow based on a play for the stage. Yeah,
this was weird. This was it was similar to something

(14:27):
we encountered with Dr X. Right, yeah, but in this one. Yeah,
you you have the credit that reads, uh like the
credit for a play based on the play by John C.
Mather and James Eastwood. And then James Eastwood also has
a screenplay credit, which, because at first one I was
looking at just how it was listed on IMDb, I

(14:48):
was like, well, maybe they say play, but they mean screenplay. No,
it seems more more clear that this was a play.
And then it was adapted into a screenplay. Okay, yeah,
I don't know. This is Matther's only film credit. Eastwood
also worked on the screenplay for such films as nineteen
fifty five The Case of the Red Monkey in nineteen
fifty six is Beyond Mombassa, which has Christopher Lee in

(15:10):
it and the young Christopher Lee. But it started seemingly
mostly just a shirtless Cornell Wild and then also Donna Reed.
Oh but let's not bury the lead. If there is
one reason to watch this movie, it is our villain
played by Patricia Lafawn. That's right, she plays Naya. This
is our martian visitor. Lafon lived nineteen nineteen through And yeah, this, uh,

(15:36):
this is a this is a really fun role of
our vamping space lord here. And it's fitting because her
biggest film role outside of this, uh and I guess,
probably being fair, probably her biggest screen role period was
playing Imparius Pompeia in MGM Sword and Sandal blockbuster Quo
Vadis from nineteen fifty one. That was a film that
had Robert Taylor, uh Peter Houston off in it, and

(15:59):
also an uncredited role as a chariot driver. We have
Christopher Lee. Christopher Lee is just in the background, creeping around,
uncredited with a goatee and sometimes credited in one number
of pictures from this era. Uh, this movie. I don't
know if it's primarily about Nero, but it's Nero is
a major character in an Emperor Nero And I think
she plays a Queen of Rome. Is that right? Oh, yes,

(16:23):
she's queenly. You can look up footage and stills from it.
She's in that. She's decked out in gold and its
elaborate hair do. Uh. And but she has that let
look on her face. She's got that smirk and those eyes.
And I do have to say, like, if you look
up images from Devil Girl from Mars, there are probably
any of her performances. Yes, uh, stunning outfit, stunning screen presence,

(16:44):
but you're missing it. You're missing out on all the
nuances if you don't see her alive in the scene.
Because her her sneer has a life all its own.
She's using her her eyebrows in very expressive ways. It's
a it's it's a wonderful performance. Yeah, I mean in
some ways you would say it's in a it's a
very emotionally flat performance, like she's supposed to play like

(17:06):
a very like unfeeling like a cold, imperious, unfeeling creature.
But she is very expressive in like the way she
raises her eyebrows at the pathetic attempts at heroism by
earth men. Yeah, it's kind of like sometimes you hear
a criticism of a villain roll and say, well, this
is a real mustache twirling villain roll, meaning that yes,

(17:28):
it's leaning into a whole bunch of stereotypes and and
tropes for regarding you know, the particular classic cinematic villain
and this over the top evil. Yeah. Yeah, and this
is very much similar case. But the thing is when
a mustache is is twirl just right on screen, Um,
it's it's satisfying. So this is definitely a performance that satisfies. Yes,

(17:50):
this is a pencil thin, eyebrow twirling role. Yes. So.
Lafon also appeared in twenty three Paces to Baker Street
in fifty six that had And Johnson and Estelle Winwood
in it. She was an actor of stage and screen,
and she also seems to have had some connections to
the London, Paris, New York fashion world. I love her
every time she she It's like, um, you know, it's

(18:12):
like Pucci. It's like every time Naya was not on screen,
character should be asking where is Naya? When is she
coming back? I felt the same way. Yeah, alright, I'm
gonna mention some of these male performers, though again they're
the least interesting part about the film. For the most part.
You have Hugh McDermott playing Michael, a journalist. Uh this

(18:34):
actor who of nineteen o six seventy two, Scottish actor
also known for Pimpernell's Smith from forty one and The
Flying Swan from Not familiar with either of those pictures.
He plays a loudmouth journalist who I think is supposed
to be likable, but he is not. He comes off
as an absolutely insufferable jerk. Yeah. But hey, now we

(18:56):
have another of the female players in this film, and
so it's a really good one. We have Hazel Court
playing Ellen, a fashion model. You know, I haven't introduced
this concept yet, but the beginning of this movie is
sort of like the prologue to the Canterbury Tales, where
it's just a gathering of all of these randos into
an inn somewhere and finding out all about like, why

(19:19):
is this person here? Oh, it's a surprise that they
showed up and she she is also like sort of
an odd puzzle piece amongst all the others here. She's
like a a a fancy London fashion model who's all
glitz and glam. She drinks tomato juice notably, and people
repeatedly point this out throughout the movie. In fact, I
think they even refer to her sometimes as tomato juice girl.

(19:42):
And I think she's meant to be taken in in
the situation of the film. Is sort of a gym
amongst the rough pebbles. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, it's a
it's a it's a fun it's a fun performance. I
feel like she she brings a lot of life and
character into this into this role, um probably more than
was necessary, and also in a way that lets you,

(20:03):
it gives you a hint of what's to come, because
uh British actor here, but also essentially a horror queen
of the late fifties early sixties. She'd go on to
become a star of Hammer horror films, and she also
worked with the likes of Roger Corman. Her credits include
the Curse of Frankenstein, from seven, The Mask of the
Red Death from sixty four, The Man Who Could Cheat

(20:26):
Death in ninety nine, Dr Blood's Coffin in sixty one
and also ninety three is the Raven. On TV, she
appeared on both The Twilight Zone and Thriller, and I
suspect we'll discuss her once again in an upcoming Halloween
selection for Weird House Cinema. Her final film was The
Final Conflict, and which she had basically a cameo. But

(20:47):
this was the This was the OMEN picture that had
Sam Neil playing a grown up Damien. Oh, okay, it's
called The Final Conflict, but it's all it's the OMEN three, right,
It's like the OMEN three colon the Final Conflict. Yeah,
or sometimes I think it's just called The Final Conflict.
I don't know. You're right, Yeah, it's both. I think
the demonic Sam Neil becomes President of the United States,
I think something like that. I don't. I don't think

(21:08):
I ever saw that, and I think I only saw
the first one. Yeah, all right, but but she's not
the only exciting of female presence in the picture. We
also have Adrian Corey, who plays Doris, a barmaid. Uh So,
Corey lived through two thousand and sixteen. Scottish born actor
known for her roles, probably best known for roles in
Doctor Shivago and A Clockwork Orange, along with such films

(21:31):
as nineteen sixty five A Study in Terror. This is
a film that had John Neville as Sherlock Holmes taking
on Jack the Ripper. And then she's also in a
film that I know you've you've seen, but but I haven't.
I remember you talking about this Mad House starring Vincent
Price and Peter Cushen. Looking this up, I don't know
have I seen this? Maybe you haven't seen it. Maybe,

(21:54):
but if I said I've seen it, I don't remember
seeing it now, Okay, well maybe maybe we just will
see it in the future at some point. But Corey
was also in the fun Hammer Space Romp Moon zero
two from in a film from seventy two called Vampire
Circus that I don't know much about, but with a

(22:15):
title like Vampire Circus, you know there's got to be
something interesting in there. I would say that both Hazel
Court and Adrian Corey do more with the roles they
have in this movie than is actually there on the page. Right, Yeah,
they both like clearly these are these are two actors
who would go on to have much bigger roles and
bigger pictures, and you can see why. Oh you know,

(22:36):
I would also actually say that about mainly because this
is just a really underwritten movie except for the just, uh,
you know, a delicious weirdness of all the scenes where
Naya is explaining our home planet and their and their
plans and stuff. But other than that, it's it's the
characters are kind of underwritten. But the guy who plays
the Professor also does a little bit more with the

(22:58):
role than you might have expected. Yeah, he's played by
an actor by the name of I think I'm saying
his last name. I could be wrong, Joseph tom Alty. Yeah,
that's what I thought. Tom Alty. He lived nineteen Northern
Irish novelist, playwright and character actor, and he was he
was in at least I don't know the extent of
these roles, but he is credited as having appeared in

(23:21):
Tonight to Remember, I believe that's a Titanic movie in
nineteen fifty six. Is Moby Dick. So he plays Professor Hennessy. Yes,
that's right, um, and he had I think despite the
fact that the movie is all really all Naya. The
line that Rachel and I kept quoting back and forth
at each other is one of his lines, the part

(23:44):
where he says, I am a scientist. I believe what
my brain tells me to believe. Oh that's that's not
that's not how it works. I love it. I also
believe my brain tells me to believe. I really have
no choice. Alright, let's see another I'm not including all

(24:10):
of the because here at least the halfs another male.
Way too many characters in this movie. Yeah, but there
is another one by the name of David, who is
a handy man, and he's played by James Edmond. James
Edmond was a Canadian actor, probably best known for this film,
but he was also in Black Christmas alongside. It's one

(24:31):
kind of forgets that that had a pretty pretty good
cast Black Christmas. It had Olivia Hussey, it had cre Delay,
Margot Kidder and John Saxon. I saw it many years ago.
I remember it did not leave a good impression. But
now it's kind of a kind of a nasty film,
as I recall. But there's no argument with that cast.
That's a good cast, all right. On the music front

(24:53):
Edwin asked Lee did the music. British composer of worked
in a lot of British action TV shows such as
The Saint. That's probably his his what he's most known for.
He also did music for The Hammer adaptation of The
Phantom of the Opera from sixty two starring Herbert lom
and a Jack the Ripper TV movie starring Boris Karloff. Now,

(25:14):
one name that caught my attention, uh from the credits
for the wrong reason was it said the Patricia A.
Fonds costume was by Ronald Cobb, and I was like
Ron Cobb like from Alien and Raiders of the Lost Ark. No,
it is a different ron Cobb, but also a second

(25:36):
excellent ron cop the this world has at least two
genius Ron Cobs in it. Yeah, this was a lot
of fun to dive into because initially, when I did
the scan of the people involved, I saw that credit too,
and I saw this guy, Ronald Cobb, and I saw
that he had no other film credits, so I thought, well,
maybe it's just a one off, but it's worth mentioning,
and because the costume is great and clearly as one
of the selling points of the whole picture. But looking

(25:59):
into it a bit more more. Yeah, this is a
Ronald Cobb who lived nineteen oh seven through nineteen seventy seven,
and um this guy worked primarily in theater and especially
in cabaret during that this time period. UM I ran
across some of his watercolors for various costumes that he
designed over the years, several of which seem to be

(26:21):
in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. UM
I included a link here for you, Joe, and also
include these these links in the blog post I do
for this at sam muta music dot com. I didn't
find anything that looked like a sketch that he had
put together for Devil Girls specifically, but oh wow, there's
some really wild, imaginative, dark and ahead of their time

(26:44):
I think kind of designs that he put together for
these costumes. Right, So these he has a lot of
costume designs for, like it appears to be burlesque clubs
of some kind in in London in like the sixties
and seventies. But they are not just your your standards
EXE outfits. They are weird. Like one is kind of
grim Reaper themed with like a big gallows and I

(27:07):
don't even know what it has bats and yeah, yeah,
there's another one that has this like a flag with
a pentagram on it, like this really wild stuff that
seemed that you know, you wouldn't expect to be emerging
from this time period necessary land Less year, you know,
really into I guess too, you know less costume design
of the period. Uh there's also a headdress that has

(27:27):
something that looks like a like a kind of like
a muppet goblin on top of it. It's really really cool,
kind of almost it also looks almost like a camera.
I don't know, it's weird. I can't really put it
all together. But you can find all of these images
online and the collection of the the Victorian Album Museum.
There are also some images apparently he he did some

(27:49):
of his designs for Murray's Club in Soho back in
the day, and so if you go to the website
for Murray's Club they have some of these watercolors as
well for for other designs that he did. Some of
these are not as weird as the ones we're describing here,
but they're still pretty interesting. Now that the costume that
that that Nia has on in this picture, it's not
nearly as um uh as revealing as these various cabaret designs.

(28:15):
But but still you can see, you can see some
of the connections to this world, you know, like that's
why it is perhaps a little more um alluring than
than what you would normally see going on with costuming
in pictures from this time period. No, the Devil Girl
from Mars is dressed kind of like a cross between um,
the the Astronauts in Planet of the Vampires and Batman,

(28:40):
but with a burlesque twist. Yeah, now I was. I
read that writer John Mather referenced earlier later claimed in
an interview that the suit was actually constructed by John Sutcliffe,
a British fashion and fetish designer and photographer who worked
a lot with leather and rubber and PVC, so lots
of like cats suits and gas masks. However, I couldn't

(29:03):
find anything of anything firm about his connection to this film,
and there do seem to be some misconceptions about film
projects that he is sometimes uh said to have been
involved in. For instance, I think sometimes it's been said
that he designed the cats suit that him appeal we
are wears in the Avengers. Uh, that isn't doesn't seem
to be the case. But he did design the cats

(29:25):
suit that marry Anne Faithful wears in The Girl on
a Motorcycle, and I think that inspired the cats suit
worn by him appeal. Uh So, I don't know where
the truth lies and all of that. It seems like
maybe it's a situation where Cobb designs it and then
they're like, well, somebody needs to build this thing, and
someone's like, well, I know this guy named John. Uh,
he's really into this stuff. He can make it come

(29:47):
to life. M hmm, all right, well, are you ready
to talk about the plot. Let's dive into the first
twenty minutes of The Devil Girl from Mars. Really, I
feel like the first twenty minutes of this movie is
going to be more were fun to discuss than to watch.
And then and then it's a flip side once and
I shows up starts with the bank. Yeah yeah, well

(30:07):
he starts with big Ben. I mean, how could you
deny that? We see that, you know, there's like a
title card a London Films International release, and then uh
we see an airplane coasting through the clouds, then a
whistling sound growing higher and pitch, and then boom, plane
explodes in a stupendous fireball and we see the title
It's Devil Girl from Mars in block letters. Now, there

(30:29):
were several things I thought were funny about the credits.
There was seeing the name Ron Cobb, even though it
was a different one. There was seeing that this was
based on a play. But then the other funny thing
that caught my attention is the producer credit screen. The
producers get their own screen, and the screen makes it
look like we're supposed to already know who the producers are.
It's as produced by the Danziggers. And then it's got

(30:52):
two little signatures, like in handwriting Edward J. Danziger and
what does that say Harry Lee Danziger. I have no
idea who that those people are, but like it presents
it as if they're like the Osmond's or something. Yeah,
I I looked at it into them briefly, and they
apparently were very active producers at the time, American born
brothers who produced many British films and TV shows in

(31:13):
the fifties and sixties. I'm not sure most of the
titles there there they were involved with really resonated beyond
their time. So I think it's it's unless you're really
into pictures of this time period, you probably don't know
who the Dan Figgers are. Devil Girl seems to be
one of the best remembered productions from everything they put out.
For example, along with perhaps the film, the only film

(31:35):
that maybe it is a little more famous than this
one would be the nineteen fifty six sci fi movie
Satellite in the Sky. This one had Kirian Moore in it,
who many out there may remember as the actor who
played Pony in Darby Ogill and the Little People. He
was also in Crack in the World and Invasion of
the Triffids. I haven't seen any of that. So oh

(31:56):
you haven't seen Darby o Gil. No, oh, it's a
fun one. When in St. Patty's Day rolls back around,
you should you should watch that one, Okay, all right? Well,
after the credits wrap up, we established the setting of
the movie, which is the Bonnie Charlie. It is a
rustic country in nestled upon the Scottish more supposed to
be somewhere in Inverness Shire, which is up in the Highlands,

(32:19):
and it's said to beat wintertime, so it's cold and
this is a you know, a lonely cozy little country
house and inn. And the first thing we hear is
a radio going. So we we go inside and the
radio is saying, this is the BBC Home Service. Here
is the news. It was announced by the Home Office
today that a that the mysterious noise heard over a

(32:40):
lonely part of Inverness Shire yesterday was caused by a
supposed meteor falling to Earth. And here we meet a
couple of characters. We meet Tommy the annoying kid, and
we meet Doris the barmaid. And of course she is
going to be very busy in this movie because a
major theme of Devil Girl from Mars is needing a drink.

(33:00):
And granted, the characters in this film are put in
exceptional circumstances, but it's still Their intake of scotch suggests
a daily, regular intake of scotch that seems a bit
beyond what I would be comfortable with. Well, yeah, and
the the excessive intake of scotch begins long before any
aliens appear on the same right, Yeah, they're already hard

(33:23):
drinking before anything supernatural or out of this world occurs.
So you know, the radio is blabberant on with exposition
about an unidentified white aircraft seen floating in the sky
over the Hebrides, and Tony the Kid is like, OI,
what's a meteor? And Doris says, I don't know, but
you know, let's say good job to the meteor for
not landing on us. And then here comes Mrs Jamison,

(33:46):
who is Tommy's aunt, and she is the proprietor of
the inn, and she kept reminding me of Maggie Smith.
But her main characteristics are being suspicious of strangers, which
is a very good quality for an innkeeper, and h
skull holding her husband for having his seventeen dram of Scotch.
I can't remember if I've already flagged this or not.
Maybe I have, but I just want to emphasize again

(34:09):
the owners of the inn are named Jamison and the
husband is apparently named Jamie Jamieson. That'd be like if
you had a character named Jack Jack Danielson and Jack
Jack Danielson or I think the professor's character name is
is Henny Hennessy. So anyway, Tommy the Kid, he's sent
to bed and Doris and Mrs Jamison discussed the meteor.

(34:30):
Doris thinks it might be romantic that it came all
the way from outer space to land in their sleepy
neck of the woods. And Mrs Mrs Jamison is not impressed.
She's she's just like, oh, a bit of rock from
the sky. But after Mrs Jamison leaves, Doris the barmaid
surreptitiously turns the radio back on. It's like she has
a secret science news habit um. And the radio says, professor, Oh, okay,

(34:54):
it's not Henny Hennessy, it's Professor Arnold Hennessey. The radio says, uh,
the well known astrophysicist has traveled north today to investigate
the mysterious object, and we'll give a detailed report to
the Home Office. So we got the Jamisons and we
got the Hennessy's, and we know that their their paths
are going to collide. And you cut from here to
two guys in a car in the dark. One is

(35:15):
Professor Hennessy himself, and the other is a fast talking,
wise cracking journalist named Michael Carter played by Hugh McDermott.
Michael Carter is such an insufferable out I guess they've
been driving around all day to find the meteor, right,
But now they are lost in Scotland, in the land
of perpetual darkness, and they are unable to figure out

(35:36):
the map that they're consulting. And then there's some really
clunky expository dialogue where Carter says something like, you mean
to tell me you spend your whole career plotting stars
millions of miles apart, and yet you can't read a
road map of Scotland. I really think they should have
inserted a prize in there, like you should have said
you mean to tell me you won the Nobel Prize

(35:56):
for plotting stars millions of miles apart. But Professor or
Hennessey reveals that he believes the whole investigation is a
waste of time anyway. He says he doesn't believe it
will turn out to be a meteor. He thinks it
will be more probably turn out to be the engine
cowling of an airplane. Well, let's hope he's wrong, because
that sounds like that would that would be terrible for
this film. That would be boring. Yes, we we also

(36:19):
get more exposition via the radio. The radio announcer says
Robert Justin, who earlier today escaped from Sterling Prison, is
still at large. His description is as follows, height five
ft ten inches, fair hair. And then what do you know?
Next thing we see as a guy, presumably the escaped prisoner,
darting around between hiding places in the dark beside the

(36:41):
road as the Professor and the journalists pass in their car,
and he's so so unremarkable looking. Yeah, well when we
first see him, he's got kind of a wild look
in his eye. But he's also he's kind of blandly handsome,
so you can probably tell he's going to turn out
to be the hero. Yeah, he doesn't look he doesn't
look menacing. So that's the that's the key, That's what

(37:02):
that's that's that's the tell here. Uh do you do
you think it's possible all these characters will make their
way over to the Bonnie Charlie the end. Uh? Anyway,
next thing is we see Doris the barmaid, and then
Mr and Mrs Jamieson doing some chores around the house
while Mr. Jamison is trying to sneak off into the
other room and she's like, uh Ms Jamieson is like

(37:24):
where are you going? And he says, oh, I'm just
going into the lounge and she says into the lounge bar.
You mean, well, you'll stay here if you're thirsty. There's
plenty of water in the tap. So this is the
ongoing dynamic between Mr and Mrs Jamison. He is always
getting caught in an attempt to sneak away for a
draft of scotch, and Mrs Jamison forbids it. Though. I

(37:45):
will say, starting about halfway through the movie, he just
starts getting away with consuming scotch and she just sort
of like laughs about it, like oh there he goes again.
He sees the opportunity. It's like alien visitation. This is
my chance to just drink scotch and stop without being
fussed at. But Doris the barmaid instead goes off to
the lounge where she here's a strange rapping at the door,

(38:08):
and she opens it up and what do you know,
it's that escaped prisoner we saw earlier. And he comes
in and she says Robert, and he says, no, it's
not Robert anymore. It's Albert Albert Simpson. Okay, so he
was Robert justin but now he's going by Albert Simpson.
And confusingly, this is how everyone will refer to him
for the rest of the movie, even though they first

(38:29):
introduced him by a different name. Okay, so what happened, Well,
we find out quote Albert Simpson escaped from prison and
Doris and Albert already have a relationship, In fact, they
were in love, and while he was in prison, she
promised to wait for him to get out, and she
took the job in Invernesshire to be close I guess
to Sterling Prison where he was being held. But he

(38:52):
escaped and here he is. Why was he in prison?
We find out it is for murdering his wife, but
he maintained that it was not murder, it was an accident.
This is never really resolved. He just says it was
an accident, and that's as much as we ever find
out about it. That red flag just remains hanging there
the whole time, flying in the breeze. I think we're

(39:13):
meant to understand that he's telling the truth and he
didn't really murder her. I don't know, Yeah, if I
feel like the film should have put in a little
more legwork on that one, Yeah, at least explained, like
it doesn't go into how it was an accident or
like why it was he he was falsely accused. Maybe
that would sell it a little better. I don't know,
but anyway, Okay, So he's convicted of murdering his wife.
He escapes from prison. He finds his old girlfriend at

(39:36):
the end and he's like, hide me. But in the
middle of them talking about how she needs to hide him, oops,
here comes to Mrs Jamison, you know, Maggie Smith comes
in basically and uh. And they've got to come up
with a ruse really fast. So Doris is like, oh, um,
this is a hiker. His name's Albert Simpson. He was
out hiking, uh, you know, in Scotland, and he dropped

(39:58):
his wallet in a stream while he was trying to
look at a fish. They say, and now he has
lost and he needs to stay at the end and
he will work for his keep. And Mrs Jamison accepts this,
but she's very suspicious of him. She says, I'm counting
the spoons. Oh and you know what what does Doris do?

(40:19):
First thing? She's like, would you like a drop of something?
So she pours him a scotch uh, And she's got
all these questions about his time in prison. She just
keeps asking like did you read a lot? You used
to love to read what was it like inside? And
you can just see the pressure building up. He's like, stop,
stop asking and so, and then Albert Simpson's like, Okay, well,
I gotta know who all is here while I'm hiding out,

(40:41):
and Doris tells him this is confusing. She's like, the
only people here are Mr. And Mrs Jamison and their
nephew Tommy. But then the rest of the scene is
other people like coming in who she didn't list. So
the first guy is this guy David, who appears to
live and work at the end. He's kind of he's
the Torgo of the end, you know, he's carrying wood

(41:02):
around and stuff and and and Doris confides that David
gives her the creeps. But then she also says, oh yeah,
and there is somebody else here. It's miss Prestwick. She
is a gorgeous model from London. What she's doing in
a place like this, I don't know. This, of course
is Hazel Court playing Ellen Prestwick. And then we see
her come down to the lounge where where Jamie Jamison

(41:23):
tries to flirt with her. Uh, he's being very inappropriate.
He's like, oh, you're always pretty as a picture. And
she she's like doing a little fashion show for him
in the hall. I don't know, it's weird. She's like
she's like talking about the outfit she's wearing as if
it's in a fashion catalog. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's
kind of fun like she's she's like, he says, he's

(41:44):
breathing a lot of life into this character. Yeah, fully
inflating the character here and then more hotel Hijinkson's Jamie
keeps sneaking booze and uh, he says, my wife has
the most unpatriotic contempt for her national beverage. And Miss James,
Mrs Jamison says you should see him when he has
a patriotic head in the morning. Uh. Meanwhile, the professor

(42:16):
and the journalist, they were the ones lost in the car. Well,
they're done being lost on the road. They see a
sign for a pub and they're like, let's go get
a drink. So they pull up outside and they run
in talking about how they're going to get quote, a
couple of big scotches. Uh. And then they come in
and there's more like can we accommodate them type hand
ringing like we got with Albert Simpson earlier, and eventually

(42:38):
Mrs Jamison informs them, was like, well, we're supposed to
be closed for the winter right now. The rooms aren't ready,
they're not in ship shape, but you can sleep there.
She says the beds are good, and Rachel and I
both reacted to that, like something about the Bonnie Charlie
does not seem like it would have good beds. My
impression is this place would have beds that are basically

(42:59):
a piece of flag stone wrapped in wool that feels
like barbed wire. And I don't know if you also
got the same just uncomfortable vibes from from the setting,
Like I think inside this building it's one of those
places that feels like it would be somehow cold and
stuffy at the same time, like it's too cold and

(43:20):
too hot simultaneously. Yeah, and one of those situations where
you know that wooden bar that it probably has that
situation going on where you have like the dust and
the grime have kind of they're kind of one thing. Now,
this kind of like sticky like black film over everything,
like you know, you know that has to be the
case here. Well, Mrs Jamison offers them something to eat,

(43:41):
but but Michael Carter says, what I need most is
a drink. So they go and they get drinks. Uh,
and Jamie is trying to serve them, and there's more
bickering about whether he will serve them drinks or not.
As they settle in, Michael Carter, the journalist, begins obnoxiously
hitting on miss Prestwick. Um. He's commenting on the fact
that she's drinking tomato juice and he's like, not many

(44:03):
girls drink tomato juice unless they're afraid of putting on weight.
So he's like trying to do some kind of nagging
pick up artist routine. And I was just thinking, when
will the Martians kill this man? Unfortunately never He turns
out to be one of the heroes of the movie.
But then Professor Hennessy introduces himself, uh, and they decide

(44:24):
to have another we Scotch and uh. I think this
is the scene where in the span of thirty seconds
they like, go get a drink three separate times. Yeah, gosh,
there's just so much Scotch drinking. And occasionally other liquids
are suggested as possible beverages, possible liquids that could be consumed,
but generally everyone seems to be of the opinion and

(44:45):
now scotch is the best. Yeah. They do sit down
to have some dinner, to have some supper, which for
which they're having scotch broth. And no, if you're not familiar,
that is actually a type of soup. It is not
just a term for hot scotch in a bowl. Uh.
And one of the things they talked about at dinner
is Jamie Jamison giving a passionate defense of the Lockness Monster.

(45:07):
He's like, I will not have anyone speak ill of
that fine creature. But can we explain the scene of
Michael Carter blowing Albert Simpson's cover so that the escaped
convict comes in. He's, you know, working for his stay,
so he's like serving bread at the table, and then
the journalist uh recognizes him. He's like, do you know

(45:28):
who that is? That's not Albert Simpson, that's this other guy.
And unless I was mistaken, I think we're supposed to
believe that he recognizes him based on the description that
was given on the radio earlier. I guess though that
is a very vague description. Yeah, so I guess what
Michael Carter is a journalist though, right, Yeah, so maybe

(45:51):
he's seen a picture through journalism. I don't know. Oh,
he just happened to cover this guy's trial or something. Maybe.
I mean, it's it's not explain anyway. The tension of
this confrontation, when it's at its peak, it's suddenly interrupted
by a cataclysmic event. There's like a shaking of the house.
And uh. The it is the approach and landing of

(46:13):
a flying saucer, which when they go outside they can't
even get close to it because it's too hot. And
this flying saucer, I'm gonna say the effect looks a
little too good for the movie that it's in. Yeah,
it is way better, UFO, way better flying saucer than
you might expect from this film a film that is
often One of the things that's often written about it

(46:33):
is that it, you know, had a low budget. It's
not a high budget affair. And uh and and also
you see enough films from this area, you see enough
films with flying saucers in it, you get used to
a certain level of of cheapness. You know, you can
have like some sort of a dinky model and some
large tripods for characters to stand around. That's essentially all
you need and and it can be fun. It can,

(46:55):
but there's sort of a standard level of quality that
you kind of set things to hover around, and I
feel like this flying saucer goes beyond that. It's it's
got this um uh, you know, it's got plenty of
the elements of the standards fifty standard fifties flying saucer
that you might come to to expect, but it also
has this kind of different energy to it. You know,
it's described as being hot, betrayed as being hot. It

(47:19):
has this kind of industrial atomic sensibility to it, and
it has these like telescopic legs that come out. Yeah,
it has moving parts and it seems to emit its
own light. Yeah. So it's this is a really cool
flying saucer model, I have to say. All right, So
they all react to that in various ways. Mr Carter,
the the journalist, runs to the telephone and I think,

(47:42):
quite hilariously, just keeps like screaming into it, Hello hello, Hello, Hello,
hello hello. And uh, meanwhile, Doris gets her convict boyfriend
to hide in the attic. Others scramble around trying to
get a car working or defined a functional telephone, all
to no avail. We get our first action scene, and
our first scene seeing Patricia lafaun is Nia when the

(48:05):
ship opens up and a ramp extends down out of
the hull and we see Nia come out. She hasn't
said anything yet. She's just silent and wearing all this
shiny black leather with the skull cap. She looks very dangerous.
And she comes down the ramp and oh, there's uh,
you know, there's David the the ends the Bonnie Charlie's

(48:28):
Torgo wandering around outside and he collapses outside the ship
and she just vaporizes him. Yeah he is he is
not a specimen that that she thinks is gonna help
Mars out at all. So instantly vaporized, leaves nothing but
smoke and a pair of spectacles. That's right, it's just
like a steaming patch of sod and and the major

(48:50):
tote glasses. But it's hard facts of life. She's looking
for hunks and uh and Torgo here does not make
the cut. This is in stark con Trust to Ship
of Monsters. Remember, because in that one, our females from
Venus arrive. They encounter our male hero and they're like, oh,
it's a male and they asked him. It's like, are
you the prime specimen? Are you like the peak specimen

(49:12):
for your species? And he's like, yeah, I am, and
they believe him. They may believe him in this. She's like, no,
now this isn't vaporized. What this is nineteen fifty four?
I guess she'd be like, where is Rock Hudson? Take
me to your Rock Hudson's so interesting in this film
has no Rock Hudson caliber actress in it. So no, so,

(49:34):
so that unfortunate thing happens to to David. And meanwhile,
the Professor and Michael Carter have been trying to fix
up the phone in the car, but to no avail.
It says if all of their Earth technology has been
magically disabled. Uh, And so they come back inside and
and they're like, hey, Doris, fix us up a couple
of big scotches, will you. That is a direct quote.

(49:54):
But Doris can't fix them big scotches because she has
been hypnotized. And this is something that will happen to
multip characters throughout the movie. Later the the escaped convict,
it gets hypnotized. The Martians appear to have some kind
of like mind control ray and when when somebody suggests,
do you think her catatonic state could have anything to
do with the flying saucer outside? The professor, for some reason,

(50:17):
is just categorically opposed to the idea that the flying
saucer could have anything to do with it. He goes,
I tell you that's absurd. But this is the scene
where we meet Patricia Lafon. She suddenly throws the doors
to the room open and comes inside. And here she is, folks.
The alien commander is standing between the French doors. Uh,

(50:38):
you know, cold and imperious. And this scene just rocks.
There is something so unusual in a simultaneously funny and
kind of spell binding way, about the rhythm of the
dialogue in the scene, the way it mostly consists of
fairly short questions and answers, like the Earthlings will ask
a question of of the Martian and then she will

(51:03):
answer in a short form, and the way she delivers
her lines. I don't know if you know what I'm
talking about, Rob, but it just establishes this this amazing
rhythm that's so consistently weird and funny. Oh yeah, yeah,
they're appoort here is pretty great. And I also have
to say this scene where suddenly she's there. Uh, nya
is they're emerging through these the French doors. There was

(51:27):
something about this that I mean, it's it's a it's
a visually captivating a scene, and but but it was
it was tingling something in my memory, and then I
realized what it was. It's h Jim Henson's film Labyrinth. Uh.
Pretty early on when we encountered Jeref the Goblin King,
he is standing. Uh. It's not exactly the same, but

(51:49):
but it's it's it's very similar like these terrestrial door
French doors or something, or windows that have been opened
and inside um, this opening, you have this this just
exquisite character from another world in this amazing costume that's
you know, bold and confident and sexy. I see exactly

(52:11):
what you're talking about. Yeah. So she comes in and uh,
and the guys in the room ask her who she is.
She says her name is Nia. They asked her where
she's from. She says, Mars. Professor Hennessy objects that it
is preposterous that she could be from Mars, no way,
and then she says, hu, men on Earth are not
as we expected. She's very disappointed. Uh and uh Professor

(52:36):
Hennessy says, we scientists were always skeptical about the possibility
of life on Mars, but certainly nothing so human. And
she she asks him you are a scientist. He says yes.
Then she says you're a very poor physical specimen, so cold,
so mean. Uh. But then she just sort of shoves

(52:57):
the professor out of the way. Presumed but because I
don't know, she's trying to get a look at Michael Carter.
I guess he's a better physical specimen. But Michael Carter
is like, you speak English, and she says, of course
you are English, aren't you? What other language should I speak?
And then she does this weird hand gesture. I don't
know what this is all about. I think maybe she's
like turning off the hypnosis mode on Doris. And then

(53:20):
she says that she in fact speaks all languages by
picking up Earth Radio. They asked her, is this the
first time Martians have landed on Earth? And she says yes.
They ask why did she land here? And she says
it's a miscalculation. You see, she was trying to get
to London, presumably to locate the stud district of London,
but Earth's atmosphere was thicker than expected and part of

(53:42):
the ship was torn off and they were forced to
land in Scotland. And the part of the ship being
torn off explains the meteor from earlier. She says repairs
are going to take about four earth hours and in
the meantime, I guess she's probably just going to toy
with them very cruelly. Now, they asked her is she
alone in the ship, and her answer is, according to

(54:04):
the version I was watching and the subtitles that came
with it, the answer is Johnny is with me. I
have read elsewhere that the character she's referring to is
actually named Johnny spelled C H A n I, but
it sounds like they're Every time she says it, it
sounds like Johnny, and the subtitle spelled at Johnny, So

(54:24):
I don't know what to believe. Yeah, I read it
somewhere as Johnny, but when she's saying it in the picture,
it's really hard to hear anything other than Johnny. But
Shawnny would be a more fitting name, I think for
an off world robot, right, because Johnny is a killbot.
She explains, Johnny is a mechanical man, a robot with
many of the characteristics of a human. This is hilarious

(54:47):
when you see him later, because he doesn't he's not
very much like a human. But yeah, he's a refrigerator
with arms and legs. Um. But they say, but she says, oh,
but he is improved by an electronic brain. And then
here we got a bunch of voluntary technobabble from Nia.
She just offers up explanations about how all of her

(55:10):
stuff works. She says, the metal from which her spaceship
is constructed can reproduce itself. Uh and uh. And then weirdly,
I don't know why this is, but we see miss
Prestwick outside the door, like listening in, like she's spying
on them. Um. But eventually she gets fomo and just
sort of comes into the room. But the professor and

(55:32):
everybody arguing about this, do you realize what you've said?
They've turned the inorganic into the organic. Okay, well, we're
about to get to the main premise. So they start
questioning her why she's going to London. This is what
Nia says. She says, many of your Earth years ago,
our women were similar to yours today. Our emancipation took

(55:53):
several hundred years and ended in a bitter, devastating war
between the sexes, the last war we ever had. Uh,
Henny here says, so you've had wars too. I was like,
why would you ask the obviously she just said they've
just said. She just said that. But Nia says, all
inhabited planets have had wars. Some have ended by wiping

(56:15):
themselves out. For every new weapon invented, a defense was
perfected until the ultimate weapon was developed, A perpetual motion
shame reactor beam. Oh god, that's this has got to
be peak um techno babble, Like what what is that even?
And then how even I'm failing to imagine what that

(56:37):
could be? Much less hall it is than utilized in
an on planet battle between two factions based on sex. Oh,
I mean she explains a little bit that he's the
Professor's like, tell me more. I want to know about
the perpetual motion chain reactor beam, and she says, as
fast as matter was created, it was changed by its
molecular structure into the next dimension, and so destroy it itself. Okay, well,

(57:02):
I don't know if that actually helps me. Annie, but
that she's got more to say, and the professor his
His comment on this is so there is a fourth dimension.
But now I explains more. She says, you know, after
the War of the Sexes, women became the rulers of Mars.
But now the mail has fallen into a decline. The

(57:22):
birthrate is dropping tremendously. For despite our advanced science, we
still have found no way of creating life. I guess
she means other than like standard sexual reproduction, which we
assume is their method, though they're never explicit about that,
so I don't know. But then Miss Prestwick she kind
of challenges Nia on this. She goes, so, you've come

(57:45):
here for new blood, and I love the way Hazel
Court here has this like defiant tone, like Miss Prestwick
is feeling territorial, and she's like, you're not gonna steal
my beloved earth schlubs. Uh you know, they belong here
with us. But Nia just uh, you know, she she's

(58:05):
not having any any defiance. She's like, yes, we're here
to to steal your males, We're going to kidnap your
mails and breed with them. But also we are here
to test a newly invented organic metal, uh quote of
which my ship is built on. Mars. Some think I
will not return, that the metal is too unstable. But
when I get back, we will build more spaceships. Meanwhile,

(58:28):
I will select some of your strongest men to return
with me to Mars. Okay, so it's it's it's a
it's a dual mission. Yeah, yeah, uh, it's you know,
it's testing out the prototype metal and it's collecting earthmen.
And Michael Carter of the Earthman says, and if I
don't want to go with you, just assuming he's going
to be picked um and Nia says there is no if.

(58:52):
She says, she will take her pick of quote the
Man and subdue London with the help of a nuclear
paralyzer array. So like the humans start arguing about this
with each other. Miss Prestwick says to the professor, don't
you understand that this thing from Mars can destroy all life?
And then very funny? So most of the earth males

(59:15):
don't want to go to Mars, but I thought it
was funny here how The professor is like, well, hold on,
now we must think objectively about what is happening. Uh
he's he says, this is the turning point in the
history of the world. Maybe you know I think he's
saying we need to hear her out. But it's also
extra funny given how cold she was to him earlier.
He's like, He's like, but but maybe it's me. Maybe

(59:36):
I'm the one that should go no, you're a very
poor male specimen. But then, oh, but then one of
the funniest parts of the whole movie, Mrs Jamison comes
into the room and she sees this lady here just
dressed in this like crazy leather space suit, and uh,

(59:58):
Michael Carter says, Mrs Jamison, may I introduce your newest guest,
ms Nia. She comes from Mars. And then what does
Mrs Jamison reply? She says, oh, well that'll mean another bed. Yeah,
and it's it is one of the it's always kind
of neat when in a film like this you have
one or two lines that are legitimately intentionally funny. That

(01:00:20):
was that some good writing there, Yeah, but then she
does a double take. By the way, Joe, you included
here from me a screenshot of the of the character
standing in front of the bar. Do you think those
are all scotch bottles? Back there on the wall, they

(01:00:41):
have like four shelves of liquor bottles, and I'm just
I'm suddenly wondering, what are we looking at here? It's
a lot of bottles, and I don't I don't know.
I'm not seeing a lot of gin back there. It
all looks like a brown liquor of various sorts. Scotch
enthusiasts will have to let us know. I really only
know my way around a cup the Scotches. Yeah. Uh, though,

(01:01:02):
it's funny. I just remembered something when Rachel and I
were watching this, uh, you know, with all the characters
that are named Hennessey and Jamison. When Um, when Nia
first came in, Rachel said, my name is Campari. That's good.
It's a good riff. Oh. Suddenly, at this point in
the movie, everybody gets agitated that they can't find David,
the guy that she vaporized out on the lawn. Um,

(01:01:25):
and they're like he's missing. And then they all turned
to her and they're like, miss Nia, have you and
she says, of course he was no stud muffin, so
I killed him. Uh. And Michael Michael Carter gets really
mad about this. They have to like restrain him. He's
like trying to punch her or something, and they're all
holding him back. I don't know why they felt the

(01:01:47):
need to establish that they found him creepy earlier, like
that there was no payoff for that, Like he never
did anything that was creepy, there was no So sometimes
you introduced the the stereotypical creepy groundskeeper character because you
want to have him be a suspect you know, you
know or something or you know, or he's creeping around
and happens to, uh, you know, run a foul of

(01:02:09):
the Jason or whatever is running around on the on
the grounds. But in this case, he's just not getting wood. Like,
why did it matter that he was creepy. He didn't
actually do anything wrong. Yeah, you kind of gotta feel
bad for David, Like, for for all we know, he
was a totally nice guy. He had no lines. Yeah,
but anyway, here Naya leaves and she says, Okay, around

(01:02:31):
this house, I've drawn an invisible wall. You can't get
through it. So I don't even try to leave. I'm
gonna do repairs on my ship and I'll be back
to to kill you all and maybe take some of
the strongest males. And then the rest of the movie
is just people coming and going back and forth from
the ship like fifteen times, uh naya in in a
quite funny manner. In fact, keeps leaving and then coming

(01:02:54):
back to the end um. And then there there are
some more scenes between the humans that are I think
trying to do character development, Like there is a scene
where Michael Carter, the the really annoying journalist, and Miss
Prestwick fall in love. Like he ostensibly he comes up
to her room at the hotel, knocking on the door

(01:03:16):
with the excuse that he has come to see if
she has any scotch, Like, yeah, I know they're clearly not.
It's like, hey, I was wondering if there's any air
in your room that I could breathe. I couldn't find
any anywhere else. But if she invites him in and
she he's like, you got any Scotch And she says nope,
but I've got some brandy okay, um and uh and so,

(01:03:40):
and we get their backstories. Miss Prestwick talks about how
she's in Scotland. Actually she doesn't volunteer this information. He
does like a cold reading routine where he like tells
her her whole backstory just by I don't know, by
like like observing her and I guess it's all correct.
You know. He figures out that she's in Scotland because

(01:04:01):
she's she's hiding from a married man with whom she
is having an affair. He I think he is the
fashion designer and she is his muse. And then meanwhile,
Michael Carter explains his backstory. Is like he's like, oh,
I've seen all the terrible things in the war zones,
but now I'm done with all that. And he says,

(01:04:21):
now I'm letting my hair down, which was a laugh
out loud moment because he does not have much hair
to let down. Oh. But then there's also the invisible wall.
This was a lot of fun because you have I
established that she was going to set a parimeter, an
invisible wall to keep people from leaving. And again, these

(01:04:42):
characters have been drinking Scotch NonStop. And then and then
you have the professor bumble in right, so they look
out the window. Actually before this, sorry, before this, they um,
Michael and Ms Prestwick have a dialogue exchange that is
so funny. It means nothing. But at one point he's
just I guess he's just frustrated. He just goes it's

(01:05:03):
that thing out there, and then she says it is there. Michael,
what's that mean? Thanks? Thanks movie? Yes said, oh yeah,
I remember. Now there is a spaceship outside and also
an invisible wall though, and that's right, maybe that's the
thing they were talking about. I don't know, is that
the spaceship or is it the robot or the spaceship.

(01:05:25):
But so the professor comes back. He's got blood on
his head now and they're like, Professor, what what happened?
And he's like, well, I went out walking and then
I crashed into the invisible wall. There really is an
invisible wall. I thought it impossible by all that is
known to science. Yeah, I don't know. I just found
that also hilarious. I think this might be the scene

(01:05:47):
with I believe what my brain tells me to believe
in my brain ran into an invisible wall. Uh. Now
here we get the first of a couple of times
where the people at the end try to figure out
how to out smart Naya. Like there. There's another scene
later where they set literally literally set an electrical trap
for her, like in the Thing from Another World, which

(01:06:08):
doesn't work, but in this scene they try to. They
find a gun and they're like, well, we can just
shoot her when she comes in, and uh Nia makes
a fabulous entrance. She like throws the doors open and
steps in. And I wish I could like show you
the listener out there a gift of this, because it's
it's such a wonderful step in move from Labyrinth again.

(01:06:32):
There's there's no owl, but it has that same energy. Yes,
uh And they try shooting her with the revolver, but
the bullets have no effect. The posture that Michael Carter
does while he's shooting at her is so funny. He's
got his non shooting hand tucked behind his back and
he's just standing up straight with the gun sort of

(01:06:52):
at stomach level, just going bang bang, And of course
the bullets bounce off of Nia because you know, she's
she's perfect, She's she's literally nothing could defeat her, absolutely right.
She says, you poor demented humans to imagine you can
destroy me with your old fashioned toy. What do you

(01:07:13):
know of force? Force? As we use it on Mars,
I could control power beyond your wildest dreams. Come and
you shall see. So she's gonna give the demonstration. I
love it when aliens give a demonstration of their power
for a for a crowd of earth On lookers, and
so they so she takes them out to the spaceship

(01:07:34):
to show her robot Johnny, to show them what Johnny
can do. So Johnny he comes out. Johnny is gigantic.
He is a refrigerator with arms and legs. His arms
are kind of like made out of a stack of
solo cups. His head is a police siren, and he
he walks around. He's he's slow moving, and he hates

(01:07:55):
trees and he's going to incinerate them and he vaporizes
a bunch of stuff with his death ray while people watch.
He does the tree, he does a car, he does
a barn. Uh yeah, he you don't want to mess
with Johnny. I think it's a pretty good robot design.
I mean it's one of the it's kind of like
the the UFO, kind of like the flying Saucer in
this film, where yes, it does match up with what

(01:08:17):
you would expect from this time period. Boxy, you know,
sort of lumbering around, but overall well executed. I like
how it's it's arms though you just described him as
been kind of like stack silo cups, but they kind
of have that telescoping energy. Uh that matches up with
the flying saucer. Well, like you feel like these are

(01:08:37):
two things from the same design universe. Sure, yeah, I
can see that. And again he's really tall, He's like
fifteen feet tall. Maybe I don't know, he's powering. She's
like he is like one of your Earth humans, but
with an improved brain. Um. And then Nia, let's see,
oh Albert Simpson, remember him the convict, he's been hiding

(01:08:57):
in the attic. Well, he he sneaks out of the
wind dough along with Tommy the kid. They both climbed
down a tree and they're running around outside. Eventually Nia
comes across them and she's like, ah, this this Earth, Tommy,
I will take this boy back to Mars with me.
And Tommy literally goes goody he wants to go to Mars.

(01:09:18):
But as you might guess, this turns into uh. For
the rest of the plot, a lot of it's like
various adult men trying to find a way to rescue
Tommy and destroy the spaceship. Again, there's the part where
they try to set an electricity trap for Nia that
does not work. At one point, Professor Hennessy tricks Nia
into showing him the inside of her spaceship, and the

(01:09:40):
way he does it by his by like appealing to
her pride. He's like, we Earthlings also have powerful machines,
and this makes her really mad. She's like, none equal
to those of Mars. So she takes him to see
the inside of the space ship and uh, and he's
going to get a look at things to figure out
what the weak point inside the ship biz. And you

(01:10:00):
know what he finds out, Yeah, he's he he You
can imagine him being like, uh, like you should you
should see the self destruct mechanisms we have on earth ships,
which she's like, those are nothing. Look at this self
destruct button. Yeah, this mechanism is far superior. But the
design of the inside of the spaceship is cool. Yeah.

(01:10:21):
I really liked it as well. It has some some
cool angles in in they do some nice things with
shadow and light. And this leads me to another interesting
visual connection. This is not one that I made. This
is one that I ran across when I was looking
at images from the film. Um Jane Voss of sci
fi ast dot net. That's s C I F I

(01:10:42):
S T. I guess it looks like sci fist uh
not dot net anyway. This author made this particular comparison,
pointing out that um that the the inside of the
spaceship can matches up at least a bit with the
meditation chamber of Darth Vader in The Empire's Tricks Back.
They do a side by side comparison here, and UM,

(01:11:04):
you know, I'm I'm not sure. I one am convinced.
I think it's a nifty comparison. The The author points
out that Lucas certainly was inspired by older genre films
and the and in making the Star Wars films, they
did look to older cinematic images. Uh so it's I
don't know, it's any connection of nothing else. The author
also points to the two possible connections between um Nia

(01:11:27):
and Dr Frankenfurger from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Again,
I'm not so sure personally, but but maybe there's certainly
some shared DNA between Nia and the likes of Jareth
from Labyrinth through Frankenfurger from Rocky Horror. And I guess
you could also make some comparisons in a different way
between uh Nia and Darth Vader. I mean, they're both

(01:11:48):
you know, stunning characters clad in black shiny uh you know,
garments and armor. Yeah, well they both have the black
like the shoulder pads and the and the smooth headpiece
and the the floor length cape. Yeah yeah, so I
don't know, maybe so at any rate, cool ship interior
I like it. Yeah, yeah, So there's a bunch more intrigue.

(01:12:09):
I'm not going to go into detail about everything else
that happens, especially between the humans. There's one part where
like the one of the humans gets hypnotized and then
they gets into a fist fight with one of the
other guys and they argue about how to defeat the
alien in the end, but ultimately the movie ends with
Albert Simpson, the convict of doing a brave act of

(01:12:30):
heroic self sacrifice to use the information gained by the
professor about the weak point on the ship and to
save the day for Earth. It's it's a fun ending
because on one level, I don't know, I guess we
were supposed to think this as well, because we see
him get on the ship. He boards the ship with
Naya and the ship takes off and again wonderful flying

(01:12:51):
saucer effect. It feels dangerous and and you know, almost
almost explosive and it takes off and it's as sending
up in the atmosphere. It's gonna leave or it's Atmos
returned to Mars, and we know what he is supposed
to do. He is supposed to hit that self destruct.
He's supposed to make the the ship explode, and we
already have a built in kind of they don't really

(01:13:12):
dwell on this, but she established earlier that the other
Martians think that the ship won't survive the trip, So
there's almost like a guarantee if they can only blow
the ship up. They're not expecting her back. But on
the other hand, it's like this guy escaped from prison
and his biggest his plan consisted of, well maybe we
can I can flee to Ireland. But now like he's

(01:13:32):
got a chance to flee the planet, he can flee
the terrestrial legal system entirely and go to Mars. And yeah,
maybe he's gonna end up in a breeding pod somewhere
with a with a you know, some sort of a
sensor stuck in his brain, but hey, at least he's
not in prison or in Ireland doing whatever he was
planning to do in Ireland. U. So there's kind of

(01:13:53):
this tension building as you watch the ship go up,
it's like, is he gonna betray uh everyone, out of
his own self entry or is he going to sacrifice
himself for Earth? And then suddenly the ship does explode.
But this is great because again, watching a movie from
this time period, you have certain expectations for that explosion.

(01:14:14):
You kind of expect, you know, a sort of a
dynamite explosion in the sky. But no, instead you get
this really cool, kind of like underwater smoke explosion, which
is extra nice here in black and white. Um, and
it looks really super creepy, like a indeed, like a
dangerous piece of advanced technology from another world just blew

(01:14:35):
up in her atmosphere, ripped a whole. Perhaps in reality,
uh you know, it looks like it's created a stain
in the sky that's going to stick around for quite
some time. But indeed he came through, He saved the Earth,
and uh, the alien threat has been destroyed or or
or maybe just avoided for a little while. The Martians

(01:14:58):
maybe won't come back to Earth for uh, you know,
a few decades. Anyway, I agree that explosion looks really
cool and it and it actually I think the way
the explosion looks kind of unusual, maybe relates to something
a scene we didn't actually talk about, the one where
Nia like folds herself into the fourth dimension and disappears.
She becomes blurry and they're like, ah, the fourth dimension.

(01:15:21):
This is another scene where she's like basically just showing
off how great Martian technology is. Well, you know, i'd
say in the in Devil Girl from Mars Is is
great fun. I do recommend it. I would also say
stick around at least until Nia shows up. It will
drag for the first five minutes or so, but but
once Nia is on screen, it's it's a hoot. Yeah,
this is a lot of fun. Again, some great design

(01:15:43):
work in here, some fun performances, uh some you know,
some surprisingly good effects and costuming that in many ways,
despite the budget, despite the time period, you know, I mean,
it feels very ahead of its time. Um. The ending
is pretty solid, though part of me still thinks that
Scotland should have surrendered become a breeding colony from Mars.
I think I think Nia ultimately she made a good

(01:16:05):
show of force. She was busting out just a lot
of just cold facts on these poor earthlings. Uh so, uh,
maybe they should have gone in the other direction, but
still it's hard to hard to argue with the solid ending.
That scene where she explains about the negative condensity is
just oh so much quality technobabble on this one. It's

(01:16:25):
I I wonder is there's still techno babble of this
quality in sci fi films today. I don't know. I mean,
I feel like, unfortunately the direction has gone more into
just like not saying as much, or trying to make
it more at least semi realistic or plausible, or just
referencing things that have no relationship to real words. You

(01:16:48):
know that there might as well be magic, yeah, or
you just I guess nowadays you can you see a
lot of the the casual invocation of quantum mechanics or nanobots,
and that explains that everything. They're like, yeah, Tony Stark's
power armor, it's basically magic. It just melts away into nothing,
It crawls inside of I guess, like a little pocket

(01:17:08):
in his skin or something. It comes back out again
and then it's everywhere and it's shooting rockets, like don't don't,
don't worry about it. It's just it's quantum mechanics. It's nanobots.
It all works out, don't worry. Carb. Yeah, it's just
carbonano nanoitudes, so that's all you need to know. But
they didn't have that excuse back in the old day.
You had to work a lot more to create quality

(01:17:29):
techno babble. You had to come up with phrases like
a perpetual motion chain reactor beam or the negative condensity.
So good, all right, we'll go and close it out here.
But obviously we'd love to hear from everyone out there
if you have thoughts on Devil Girl from Mars or
any of the players in this in this film, or
or films in a similar genre. Yeah, right in we'd

(01:17:52):
love to hear from if you have memories of catching
this film on TV back in the day. Uh yeah, yeah,
We're always always interested to hear those stories. And in
the meantime, yeah, we're primarily a science podcast with core
episodes on two season Thursdays, but on Fridays we do
weird house Cinema here. That's our time to set aside
most serious concerns and just talk about a weird film.

(01:18:14):
I do blog posts about these episodes at smut to
music dot com and if you use letterbox that's l
E T T E R B O x D dot com. Well,
you can find us on there. Our user name is
weird House. We maintain a list of all the movies
we've covered so far, and sometimes we'll include a preview
of what we're about to cover as well. Huge thanks

(01:18:34):
as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
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(01:18:56):
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