Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Devil Girl From Mars

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, Welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. In today's episode,
we're going to revisit an episode that originally published nine
nine twenty two. This is Devil Girl from Mars. Let's
dive right in.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
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,
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

(00:54):
to be attacked by an evil Martian boss lady who
wants to kidnap and dominate scdish men. Yes, that's right,
Fans of Weird House Cinema may feel an inkling 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

(01:16):
of men and must come to Earth to steal our
precious earth hunks. The other one was the lighthearted Mexican
romantic musical horror comedy Ship of Monsters from nineteen sixty
and that one was such a delight. I still remember
that so fondly. I think Devil Girl from Mars is

(01:36):
also a delight, but in a very different way. Ship
of Monsters 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 by virtue
of its absurd self seriousness.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah, yeah, this is not a lighthearted musical romp 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 have some of that going on in Devil Girl

(02:15):
from Mars as well.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
But also there is no character in Devil Girl from
Mars like Lolo Gunzalez 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.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah, and none of the male performers are actually that interesting,
either in their in their careers or in their performances here.
At least I didn't find them so. But the female
performers are pretty great.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
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 movie is really going
to be kind of a drag. But then and the
moment the Martian shows up, the movie kicks into high
gear immediately.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, I agree that you warned me about the first
twenty minutes, and the first twenty minutes of this film
are indeed quite slow and are not all that fantastic.
So so definitely know that going into the film. But
we mentioned Scottish as much as anything is purely a
Scottish film. I guess this is kind of our first

(03:25):
Scottish film on Weird House Cinema.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
Right, I can't think of another one. And it's also
it's not incidentally Scottish. It's not just like made by Scott's.
This is very much set in Scotland.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Right right, I think you can you can maybe get
into the production credit and say like, well, it's more
basically a British production basically in introduction, but yeah, a
lot of Scottish talent involved in this picture and set
in Scotland, right.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
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, a sort of anti inspiration,
for the great science fiction author Octavia Butler. I found
a transcript of a talk she delivered at MIT in

(04:13):
nineteen ninety eight about the role of media like movies
and TV in the history of sci fi. And she
goes over a bunch of different topics in the speech,
but one of the 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 and the

(04:34):
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 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

(04:55):
have died off, and there were a bunch of man
hungry women up there, and the earth men don't want
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 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

(05:16):
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.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah, that's fun. I wasn't aware of this connection. 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 a less than stellar plot
in a film or something, but more often than not,

(05:50):
it's just like you're watching a film. There are spaces
in it, spaces that yes, it's not only like could
this be improved? But what if this was improved? So
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

(06:11):
in a product based creative endeavor, or just in the
mindscape of enjoying the film totally.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
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 and
when things aren't working.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, now 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 a 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 technobabbles we'll discuss.
But occasionally, as our a visitors talking about conditions back

(07:02):
home and laying down a little world building, some of
it does it, you know, kind of gets you gets
or 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?

Speaker 4 (07:14):
You know?

Speaker 1 (07:14):
And you know that they're not they're not filling on
all the details for you, but they're giving you, like
a few visuals, some some sights and sounds, some ideas,
and then your brain kind of sketches in the rest
of it. And that's that's something I always enjoy about
a film like this totally.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
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,
were there like people on Mars who fell in love
and they were like traders to their to their side
in the War of the Sexes? I don't know.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Yeah, it raises a lot of questions. You probably shouldn't
think too literally about it. All. I know that this
isn't the only work of fiction to contemplate such a thing,
so I guess, you know, metaphorically at least it it's
it's useful in in fiction. You know.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
This plot differs somewhat from the premise 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 the men they got nuclear weapons and
they killed all the other men. So Venus has no

(08:24):
men left, so it was an intra sex dispute. The
men killed each other 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.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
Maybe not. Well, I guess she is supposed to have
sort of a black widow kind of vibe to her.
In fact, there is. It's part rather clumsily where one
of the child 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

(08:59):
it's kind of like, yeah, 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 power in films like this.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
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.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
Yeah, and it's definitely portrayed in a way that is
I would say, sexually ahead of her time. Like I
was reading about this film in Michael Weldon's Psychotronic books
that summarizes this, He writes, quote, the alien herself is
a real vision in boots, black tights, padded shoulders cape

(09:49):
and a shiny black skull cap. The stuffy British males
actually want to stay in England, which.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
Is great, though not in England, they are in Scotland.
I guess a couple of 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.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
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 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, So which would I think would have been fitting?
That would have been a nice like I don't know
if that would be a maybe be a nineties outer

(10:34):
limits ending.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
Oh, that would be a good twist if like the
character who goes as very like over eager young man.
But I was thinking the other twist given that like
they didn't the Martians didn't realize Earth was going to
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

(10:58):
soon as they get there, it's just suffo.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
We got to go back for more. Now.

Speaker 3 (11:02):
I think we've already done the elevator pitch, so maybe
we can skip that. But we've got to hear some
trailer audio.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
All right, let's do it.

Speaker 5 (11:11):
We saw this with our own eyes, and object the
like of which we had never seen before, A frightening
strain shape descending from out of space with relentless putts.

Speaker 6 (11:21):
Where did it come from? And what did it want
of us?

Speaker 4 (11:27):
Well, we've never seen before. How what do you mean?

Speaker 5 (11:29):
Hello, It's like something from out of planet Tom.

Speaker 6 (11:41):
Do not try to follow me. You cannot get help.

Speaker 4 (11:44):
Around this pass.

Speaker 6 (11:45):
I've drawn in the visible wall to which no one
may pass. Here is a news reporter with a world
shattering storm, a girl trying to escape from her pups,
the scientist trapped in spite of his knowledge. And here
also is the Bombade Secret, a murderer with a life
already of Harford, and introducing the devil girl from Mars.

Speaker 4 (12:08):
Back on fire?

Speaker 6 (12:10):
You for.

Speaker 4 (12:13):
Shoot on shoot?

Speaker 1 (12:35):
All right? All right, sounds pretty good.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
Let's see. So there are a bunch of places you
can watch this one. I think I just streamed it
on Amazon.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Yeah, 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 via Film Movement, Flix, Fling,
some other places. And I should also point out that
there have been some basic physical releases as well, but
also Bridget and Mary Joe covered it on riff tracks,

(13:04):
So I haven't actually experienced their riff of the film,
but 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 lot of stuff to
have fun with here.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
Yeah, I've got to watch that now.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
All right. Well, let's get into the various humans, mostly
Scottish humans, involved in the creation of this picture, all right.
Starting at the top, we have director David MacDonald born
nineteen oh 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

(13:40):
would have been like the late nineteen twenties and I
guess early thirties, 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. Certainly,
he seems to have maybe been more successful during his

(14:02):
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 film seemed
to have been nineteen forty seven's The Brothers nineteen forty
eight Christopher Columbus and the nineteen fifty seven Swashbuckler The Moonraker.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
The Moonraker.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah, no connection, or at least I don't know. Maybe
Moonraker has something to do with the plot of this
fifty seven Swashbuckler. I'm not sure.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
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.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah, this was weird. It was similar to something we
encountered with Doctor X, right, Yeah, but in this one. Yeah,
you have the credit that reads like the credit for
a play based on the play by John C. Mather
and James Eastwood. And then James east Wood also has
a screenplay credit, which because at first, when I was

(15:04):
looking at just how it was listed on IMDb, I
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 Mather's only film credit, while
Eastwood also worked on the screenplay for such films as
nineteen fifty five's The Case of the Red Monkey, and

(15:25):
nineteen fifty six is Beyond Mombasa, which has Christopher Lee
in it of a young Christopher Lee, but it starred
seemingly mostly just a shirtless Cornell Wild and then also
Donna Reed.

Speaker 3 (15:36):
Oh but let's not bury the lead. If there is
one reason to watch this movie, it is our villain
played by Patricia Lafon.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
That's right, she plays Naya. This is our martian visitor. E.
Lafon lived nineteen nineteen through twenty fourteen. And yeah, this
is this is a really fun role of our vamping
space lord here. And it's fitting because herr biggest film
role outside of this, and I guess, probably being fair,
probably her biggest screen role period was playing Empress Pompeia

(16:08):
in MGMs Sword and Sandal blockbuster Quovadis from nineteen fifty one.
That was a film that had Robert Taylor Peter Euston
Off in it, and 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 I learned,
sometimes credited in at number of pictures from this era.

Speaker 3 (16:29):
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?

Speaker 1 (16:40):
Oh, yes, she's queenly. Yeah, you can look up footage
and stills from it. She's in that. She's decked out
in gold and this elaborate hairdoo. But she has that
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, stunning outfit, stunning screen presence,

(17:03):
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 on its own.
She's using her her eyebrows in very expressive ways. It's
a it's a wonderful performance.

Speaker 3 (17:18):
Yeah, I mean, in some ways you would say it's
a it's a very emotionally flat performance, like she's supposed
to play like 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.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
Yeah, it's kind of like sometimes you hear a criticism
of a villain role and say, well, this is a
real mustache twirling villain role, meaning that, yes, it's leaning
into a whole bunch of stereotypes and and tropes regarding
you know, the particular classic cinematic villain.

Speaker 3 (17:54):
And this over the top evil. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, and this is very much similar case. But the
thing is when a mustash is twirl just right on screen,
it's satisfying. So this is definitely a performance that satisfies.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
Yes, this is a pencil thin, eyebrow twirling role.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
Yes. So. Lafon also appeared in twenty three Paces to
Baker Street in fifty six that had Van 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.

Speaker 3 (18:27):
I love her every time. It's like, you know, it's
like Pooci. It's like every time Nya was not on screen,
character should be asking where is Naya? When is she
coming back?

Speaker 1 (18:38):
I felt the same way. Yeah, all right, I'm going
to 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. This actor
lived nineteen oh six through nineteen seventy two, Scottish actor,
also known for Pimpernel's Smith from forty one in The

(18:59):
Flying Swan from nineteen sixty five. Not familiar with either
of those pictures.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
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.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
Yeah, but hey, now we have another of the female
players in this film, and it's a really good one.
We have Hazel Court playing Ellen, a fashion model.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
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 is this person here? Oh,
it's a surprise that they showed up. And she is
also like sort of an odd puzzle piece amongst all

(19:44):
the others here. She's like 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, and I think she's meant to be taken
in the situation of the film as sort of a

(20:04):
gem amongst the rough pebbles.

Speaker 4 (20:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
Yeah, So it's fun. It's a fun performance. I feel
like she breathes a lot of life and character into
this role, probably more than was necessary, and also in
a way that lets it gives you a hint of
what's to come. Because a British actor here, but also
essentially a horror queen of the late fifties early sixties,

(20:31):
she'd go on to become a star of Hammer horror films,
and she also worked with the likes of Roger Korman.
Her credits include The Curse of Frankenstein from nineteen fifty seven,
The Mask of the Red Death from sixty four, The
Man Who Could Cheat Death in nineteen fifty nine, Doctor
Blood's Coffin in sixty one, and also nineteen sixty three
Is the Raven. On TV, she appeared on both the

(20:51):
twilight Zone and Thriller, and I suspect we'll discuss her
once again in an upcoming Halloween selection for Weird House Cinema.
The final film was nineteen eighty one's The Final Conflict,
in which she had basically a cameo. But this was
the OMEN picture that had Sam Neil playing a grown
up Damien.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
Oh okay, it's called The Final Conflict, but it's the
Omen three, right, It's like the OMEN three colon the
Final Conflict.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
Yeah, or sometimes I think it's just called the Final Conflict.
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
You're right, Yeah, it's both. I think the demonic Sam
Neil becomes President of the United States.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
I think something like that. I don't think I ever
saw that one. I think I always saw the first one. Yeah,
all right, But she's not the only exciting female presence
in the picture. We also have Adrian Corey, who plays Doris,
a bar maid. So Corey lived nineteen thirty one through
twenty sixteen, Scottish born actor known for her roles, probably

(21:45):
best known for roles in Doctor Schivago and A Clockwork Orange,
along with such films as nineteen sixty five's 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 seen,
but I haven't. I remember you talking about this one
nineteen seventy four is Mad House, starring Vincent Price and

(22:06):
Peter Cushion.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
Looking this up, I don't know have.

Speaker 1 (22:09):
I seen this? Maybe you haven't seen it.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
Maybe if I said I've seen it, I don't remember
seeing it now.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
Okay, well 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 nineteen sixty nine,
in a film from seventy two called Vampire Circus that
I don't know much about, but with a title like
Vampire Circus, you know that there's got to be something
interesting in there.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
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.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
Right, Yeah, they both like clearly, these are two actors
who would go on to have much bigger roles and
bigger pictures, and you can see why.

Speaker 3 (22:54):
Oh you know. I would also actually say that about
mainly because this is just a really underwritten movie for
the just you know, delicious weirdness of all the scenes
where Nya is explaining her home planet, 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

(23:16):
role than you might have expected.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
Yeah, he's played by and acted by the name of
I think I'm saying his last name Ryd could be wrong.
Joseph Tomalty.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
Yeah, that's what I thought.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Tomalty. He lived nineteen ten through nineteen ninety five, Northern
Irish novelist, playwright and character actor, and he was in
at least I don't know the extent of these roles,
but he is credited as having appeared in nineteen fifty
eight Tonight to Remember I Believe that's a Titanic movie,
and nineteen fifty six is Moby Dick.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
So he plays Professor Hennessy. Yes, that's right, and he
had I think, despite the fact that the movie is
all really all Nya. The line that Rachel and I
kept quoting back and forth at each other is one
of his lines, the part where he says, I am
a scientist. I believe what my brain tells me to believe.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
Oh that's not how it works. I love it.

Speaker 3 (24:12):
I also believe what my brain tells me to believe.
I really have no choice.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
All right, let's see another I'm not including all of
the because here are at least a half does another
male characters?

Speaker 3 (24:31):
Way too many characters in this movie.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah, but there is another one by the name of
David who is a handyman, and he's played by James Edmund.
James Edmund was a Canadian actor, probably best known for
this film, but he was also in nineteen seventy four's
Black Christmas, alongside one kind of forgets that. That had
a pretty good cast. Black Christmas. It had Olivia Hussey,

(24:54):
it had Ker Delay, Margo Kidder and John Saxon. I
saw it many years ago.

Speaker 3 (24:59):
I remember it did not leave a good impression.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
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. Oh yeah, all right. On the
music front Edwin Astley did the music. British composer of
nineteen twenty two through nineteen ninety eight, worked in a
lot of British action TV shows, such as The Saint.
That's probably what he's most known for. He also did

(25:22):
music for The Hammer adaptation of The Phantom of the
Opera from sixty two starring Herbert Lohm, and a nineteen
fifty eight Jack the Ripper TV movie starring Boris Karloff.

Speaker 3 (25:32):
Now, one name that caught my attention from the credits
for the wrong reason was it said that Patricia Lafon's
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

(25:54):
excellent Ron cob This world has at least two genius
ron Cobbs in it.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yeah, this was a lot of fun to dive into
because of 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 is one of the
selling points of the whole picture. But looking into it
a bit more, Yeah, this is a Ronald Cobb who

(26:20):
lived nineteen oh seven, through nineteen seventy seven, and this
guy worked primarily in theater and especially in cabaret during
this time period. I ran across some of his watercolors
for various costumes that he designed over the years, several
of which seemed to be in the collection of the
Victoria and Albert Museum. I included a link here for you, Joe,

(26:44):
and also include these links in the blog post I
do for this at im mutamusic 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
I think kind of designs that he put together for

(27:05):
these costumes.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
Right, So, these he has a lot of costume designs for,
like it appears to be burlesque clubs of some kind
in London in like the sixties and seventies. But they
are not just your your standard sexy outfits. They are weird.
Like one is kind of grim Reaper themed with like
a big gallows and I don't even know what it
has bats.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
Yeah, yeah, there's another one that has this like a
flag with a pentagram on it, Like this really wild
stuff that seems that, you know, you wouldn't expect to
be emerging from this time period necessarily unless you're you know,
really into I guess too, you know, or less costume
design of the period. There's also a headdress that has
something that looks like a like a kind of like

(27:48):
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 these images online
and the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. There
are also some images. Apparently he did some of his
designs for Murray's Club and SOHO back in the day,

(28:11):
and so if you go to the website for Murray's Club,
they have some of these watercolors as well 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. The costume that that Naya has on
in this picture, it's not nearly as as revealing as
these various cabaret designs, but still you can see you

(28:35):
can see some of the connections to this world, you know,
like That's why it is perhaps a little more alluring
than what you would normally see going on with costuming
in pictures from this time period.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
No, the Devil Girl from Mars is dressed kind of
like a cross between the astronauts in Planet of the
Vampires and Batman, but with a burlesque TWI.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
Yeah, now, I read that writer John mather We 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 catsuits and gas masks. However,

(29:21):
I couldn't 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 said to
have been involved in. For instance, I think sometimes it's
been said that he designed the cat suit that m
appeal We wears in The Avengers. That doesn't seem to
be the case. But he did design the cat suit

(29:44):
that Maryanne Faithful wears in nineteen sixty eight's The Girl
on a Motorcycle, and I think that inspired the cat
suit worn by him appeal, So I don't know where
the truth lies and all of that. It seems like
maybe it's a situation where yeah, 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,
he's really into this stuff. He can make it come

(30:05):
to life.

Speaker 3 (30:07):
All right, Well, are you ready to talk about the plot?

Speaker 1 (30:10):
Let's dive into the first twenty minutes of The Devil
Girl from Mars.

Speaker 3 (30:15):
Really, I feel like the first twenty minutes of this
movie is going to be more fun to discuss than
to watch. And then it's a flip side once Naya
shows up.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
What starts with the bank?

Speaker 6 (30:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (30:24):
Yeah, well 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 film's international release, and
then we see an airplane coasting through the clouds, then
a whistling sound growing higher in 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,

(30:47):
there 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
producer get their own screen, and the screen makes it
look like we're supposed to already know who the producers are.
It says produced by the Danzigers, and then it's got

(31:10):
two little signatures, like in handwriting Edward J. Danziger and
what does it say Harry Lee Danziger. I have no
idea who those people are, but like it it presents
it as if they're like the Osman's or something.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
Yeah, I looked at it into them briefly. They apparently
were very active producers at the time, American born brothers
who produced many British films and TV shows in the
fifties and sixties. I'm not sure most of the titles
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 that you probably don't know who the
dan Ziggers are. Devil Girl seems to be one of

(31:46):
the best remembered productions from everything they put out. For example,
along with perhaps The only film that maybe is a
little more famous than this one would be the nineteen
fifty six sci fi movie Satellite in This Sky. This
one had Kirian Moore in it, who many out there
may remember as the actor who played Pony in Darby

(32:07):
O'Gill and the Little People. He was also in Crack
in the World and Invasion of the Triffets.

Speaker 3 (32:12):
I haven't seen any of that.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
So ah, you haven't seen Darby Ogill. No, oh, it's
a fun one. When St. Patti's Day rolls back around,
you should watch that one.

Speaker 3 (32:22):
Oh, okay, all right, Well, after the credits wrap up,
we establish the setting of the movie, which is the
Bonnie Charlie. It is a rustic country inn nestled upon
the Scottish more, supposed to be somewhere in Inverness Shire,
which is up in the highlands. And it's said to
be wintertime, so it's cold, and this is a you know,

(32:42):
a lonely, cozy little country house and inn. And the
first thing we hear is a radio going so 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 the mysterious noise heard
over a lonely part of Inverness Shire yesterday was caused
by a supposed meteor falling to Earth. And here we

(33:05):
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.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
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.

Speaker 3 (33:34):
Well, yeah, and the excessive intake of scotch begins long
before any aliens appear on the.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
Same right, Yeah, they're already hard drinking before anything supernatural
or out of this world occurs.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
So, you know, the radio's blabern 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 media for not landing
on us. And then here comes Missus Jamison, who is
Tommy's aunt, and she is the proprietor of the inn,

(34:08):
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 scolding her husband
for having his seventeenth 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. The owners of
the inn are named Jamison, and the husband is apparently

(34:32):
named Jamie Jamison.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
Wow, that'd be like if you had a character named
Jack Jack Danielson.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
Jack Jack Danielson, or I think the professor's character name
is Henny Hennessy. So anyway, Tommy the kid, he's sent
to bed and Doris and Missus Jamison discussed the medior.
Doris thinks it mighty romantic that it came all the
way from outer space to land in their sleepy neck
of the woods, and Missus Jamison is not impressed. She's

(34:58):
just like, oh, a bit of rock from the sky.
But after Missus Jamison leaves, Doris, the barmaid surreptitiously turns
the radio back on. It's like she has a secret
science news habit. And the radio says, Professor, Oh, okay,
it's not Henny Hennessy, it's Professor Arnold Hennessee. The radio says,
the well known astrophysicist has traveled north today to investigate

(35:21):
the mysterious object, and we'll give a detailed report to
the Home Office. So we've got the Jamisons, so we
got the Hennessy's, and we know that their paths are
going to collide. And you cut from here to two
guys in a car in the dark. One is Professor
Hennessy himself, and the other is a fast talking, wise
cracking journalist named Michael Carter played by Hugh McDermott. Michael

(35:42):
Carter is such an insufferable lout. I guess they've been
driving around all day to find the mediaite. But now
they are lost in Scotland, in the land of perpetual darkness,
and they are unable to figure out 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,

(36:05):
and yet you can't read a road map of Scotland.
I really think they should have inserted a prize in there,
like he should have said, you mean to tell me
you won the Nobel Prize for plotting stars millions of
miles apart. But Professor Hennessy 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.

(36:26):
He thinks it will be more probably turn out to
be the engine cowling of an airplane.

Speaker 1 (36:31):
Well, let's hope he's wrong, because that sounds like that.
That would be terrible for this film.

Speaker 3 (36:35):
That would be boring. Yes, we also 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 feet ten inches,
fair hair. And then what do you know? Next thing
we see as a guy, presumably the escaped prisoner, darting

(36:57):
around between hiding places in the dark beside the road
as the professor and the journalists passing their.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
Car, and he's so unremarkable looking.

Speaker 3 (37:06):
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 could probably tell
he's going to turn out to be the hero.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
Yeah, he doesn't look he doesn't look menacing. So that's
the that's the key, that's what that's the tail here.

Speaker 3 (37:23):
Do you think it's possible all these characters will make
their way over to the Bonnie Charlie the end? Anyway,
next thing is we see Doris the barmaid, and then
mister and Missus Jamison doing some chores around the house
while mister Jamison is trying to sneak off into the
other room and she's like. Miss Jamison is like, where
are you going? And he says, oh, I'm just going

(37:44):
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 mister and Missus Jamison. He is always
getting caught in an attempt to sneak away for draft
of Scotch and Missus Jamison forbids it. Though I will
say starting about halfway through the movie, he just starts

(38:06):
getting away with consuming scotch and she just sort of
like laughs about it, like, oh, there he goes again.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
He sees the opportunity. It's like alien visitation. This is
my chance to just drink scotch NonStop without being fussed at.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
But Doris the barmaid instead goes off to the lounge
where she hears a strange rapping at the door, 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,

(38:44):
this is how everyone will refer to him for the
rest of the movie, even though they first 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

(39:05):
the job in Invernesshire to be close, I guess to
Sterling Prison where he was being held. But he escaped
and here he is. Why was he in prison? We
find out it is for murdering his wife, but he
maintains 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

(39:25):
out about it.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
That red flag just remains hanging there the whole time,
flying in the breeze.

Speaker 3 (39:31):
I think we're meant to understand that he's telling the
truth and he didn't really murder her. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Yeah, I feel like the film should have put in
a little more leg work on that one.

Speaker 3 (39:39):
Yeah, at least explained, like it doesn't go into how
it was an accident or like why it was he
was falsely accused. Yeah, 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 the end and he's like,
hide me. But in the middle of them talking about
how she needs to hide him, O, here comes missus Jamison.

(40:01):
You know, Maggie Smith comes in basically, and and they've
got to come up with a ruse really fast. So
Doris is like, oh, this is a hiker. His name's
Albert Simpson. He was out hiking, you know, in Scotland,
and he dropped his wallet in a stream while he
was trying to look at a fish. They say, and
now he is lost and he needs to stay at

(40:23):
the end and he will work for his keep. And
Missus Jamison accepts this, but she's very suspicious of him.
She says, I'm counting the spoons. Oh and you know
what does Doris do? First thing? She's like, would you
like a drop of something? So she pours him a
scotch and she's got all these questions about his time

(40:44):
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. Yeah and so
and then Albert Simpson's like, okay, well, I got to
know who all's here while I'm hiding out And Doris
tells him this is confusing. She's like, the only people
here are mister and Missus Jamison and their nephew Tommy.

(41:07):
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 tor
go of the inn, you know, he's carrying wood around
and stuff. And Doris confides that David gives her the creeps.
But then she also says, oh yeah, and there is

(41:27):
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 Jamie Jamison tries to flirt with her.
He's being very inappropriate. He's like, oh, you're always pretty
as a picture, and she's like doing a little fashion

(41:51):
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.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's kind of fun. Like he's,
like I said, she's breathing a lot of life into
this character. Yeah, fully inflating the character here.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
And then more hotel high jenks ensue Jamie keeps sneaking booze,
and he says, my wife has the most unpatriotic contempt
for her national beverage, and miss Jamison, Missus Jamison says,
you should see him when he has a patriotic head
in the morning.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
Ah.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
Meanwhile, the professor 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, and
then they come in and there's more like can we
accommodate them type hand ringing like we got with Albert

(42:53):
Simpson earlier, and eventually missus Jamison informs them, was like, well,
we're supposed to be closed for the enter 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

(43:16):
beds that are basically a piece of flagstone wrapped in
wool that feels like barbed wire. And I don't know
if you also got the same just uncomfortable vibes 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

(43:37):
cold and too hot simultaneously.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
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 that has to be the case here.

Speaker 3 (43:56):
Well, missus Jamison offers them something to eat, but Michael
Carter says, what I need most is a drink. So
they go and they get drinks 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.

(44:17):
He's commenting on the fact that she's drinking tomato juice
and he's like, not many girls drink tomato juice unless
they're afraid of putting on weight. So he's like trying
to do some kind of nagging pickup 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

(44:41):
and they decide to have another we scotch. And I
think this is the scene where in the span of
thirty seconds they like, go get a drink three separate times.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
Yeah, gosh, there's just so much scotch drinking. And occasionally
other liquids are suggested as possible beverages, possible liquids that
could be andsumed, but generally everyone seems to be of
the opinion and no scotch is the best.

Speaker 3 (45:05):
Yeah. They do sit down to have some dinner, to
have some supper, which for which they're having scotch broth.
And know, if you're not familiar, that is actually a
type of soup. It is not just a term for
hot scotch in a bowl. And one of the things
they talk about at dinner is Jamie Jamison giving a
passionate defense of the lockness monster. He's like, I will

(45:26):
not have anyone speak ill of that fine creature. Yes,
but can we explain the scene of Michael Carter blowing
Albert Simpson's cover. So 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 recognizes him.

(45:46):
He's like, do you know 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.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
I guess, though that is a very vague description. Yeah,
so I guess Michael Carter is a journalist though, right, Yeah,
so maybe he's seen a picture through journalism.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
I don't know, Oh, he just happened to cover this
guy's trial or something.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
Maybe, I mean, it's it's not explained anyway.

Speaker 3 (46:19):
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 it is the approach and
landing of 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

(46:41):
a little too good for the movie that it's in.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
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 is that it had a low budget. It's not
a high budget affair. And also, you see enough films
from this area, you see enough films with flying sauce
in it, you get used to a certain level of cheapness.
You know, you can have like some sort of a

(47:06):
dinky model and some large tripods for characters to stand around.
That's essentially all you need. And it can be fun,
it can, but there's sort of a standard level of
quality that you kind of accept things to hover around,
and I feel like this flying saucer goes beyond that.
It's it's got this, you know, it's got plenty of
the elements of a standard's fifties, standard fifties flying saucer

(47:28):
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, it portrayed as being hot.
It has this kind of industrial atomic sensibility to it,
and it has these like telescopic legs that come out.

Speaker 3 (47:44):
Yeah, it has moving parts, and it seems to emit
its own light.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yeah. So it's this is a really cool flying saucer model,
I have to say.

Speaker 3 (47:53):
All right, So they all react to that in various ways.
Mister Carter, the journalist runs to the telephone and I think,
quite hilariously, just keeps like screaming into it, Hello hello, hello, hello,
hello hello. And meanwhile Doris gets her convict boyfriend to
hide in the attic. Others scramble around trying to get
a car working or define a functional telephone, all to

(48:15):
no avail. We get our first action scene. In our
first scene seeing Patricia Lafon is NYA when the 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

(48:38):
and she comes down the ramp and uh, oh, there's
you know, there's David the ends the Bonnie Charlie's torgo
wandering around outside and he collapses outside the ship and
she just vaporizes him.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
Yeah, he is not a specimen that she thinks is
going to help Mars out at all. So intantly vaporized
leaves nothing but smoke and a pair of spectacles.

Speaker 3 (49:04):
That's right, it's just like a steaming patch of sod
and the major tote glasses. But it's hard facts of life.
She's looking for hunks and torgo here does not make
the cut.

Speaker 1 (49:17):
This is in stark contrast to a 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 ask him. It's like, are you the
prime specimen? Are you like the peak specimen for your species?
And he's like, yeah, I am.

Speaker 3 (49:33):
And they believe him.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
Yeah, they may believe him in this She's like, no, now,
this isn't it vaporize?

Speaker 4 (49:39):
No?

Speaker 3 (49:40):
What this is nineteen fifty four. I guess she'd be like,
where is rock Hudson? Take me to your Rock Hudsons.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
Though interestingly, this film has no Rock Hudson caliber actress
in it.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
So no, So that unfortunate thing happens 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, And so they come back inside and they're like, hey, Doris,
fix us up a couple of big scotches, will you.

(50:10):
That is a direct quote. But Doris can't fix them
big scotches because she has been hypnotized. And this is
something that will happen to multiple characters throughout the movie. Later,
the escape convict, it gets hypnotized. The Martians appear to
have some kind of like mind control ray and when
somebody suggests do you think her catatonic state could have

(50:31):
anything to do with the flying saucer outside, the Professor
for some reason, 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 Lavon. She suddenly throws
the doors to the room open and comes inside, and

(50:52):
here she is, folks. The alien commander is standing between
the French doors, you know, cold and imperious, and this
scene just rocks. There is something so unusual in a
simultaneously funny and kind of spellbinding way. About the rhythm
of the dialogue and this scene, the way it mostly
consists of fairly short questions and answers, like the Earthlings

(51:16):
will ask a question of the Martian and then she
will 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 amazing
rhythm that's so consistently weird and funny.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
Oh yeah, yeah, the rapport here is pretty great. And
I also have to say the scene where suddenly she's there,
Naya is there, emerging through these the French doors. There
was something about this that, I mean, it's a visually
captivating a scene, but it was tingling something in my memory,
and then I realized what it was. It's Jim Henson's

(51:58):
nineteen eighty six film Labyrinth. Pretty early on when we
encounter Jareth the Goblin King, he is standing. It's not
exactly the same, but it's very similar, like these terrestrial
door French doors or something, or windows that have been opened,
and inside this opening you have this just exquisite character

(52:22):
from another world in this amazing costume. That's, you know,
bold and confident and sexy.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
I see exactly what you're talking about.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:31):
So she comes in and the guys in the room
ask her who she is. She says her name is Nia.
They ask 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, you men
on Earth are not as we expect it. She's very disappointed,

(52:53):
and Professor Hennessy says, we scientists were always skeptical about
the possibility of life on Mars, but certainly nothing so human.
And she asks him you are a scientist. He says yes.
Then she says you are a very poor physical specimen,
so cold, so mean. But then she just sort of

(53:15):
shoves the professor out of the way, presumably 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's 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 she says

(53:39):
that she in fact speaks all languages by picking up
Earth Radio. They ask 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 the spected and part of the

(54:01):
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 ask her is she alone in
the ship, and her answer is, according to the version

(54:23):
I was watching in 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
Chohnnie spelled Ani, but it sounds like they're every time
she says it it sounds like Johnny, and the subtitle
spelled it Johnny, so I don't know what to believe.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
Yeah, I read it somewhere as Chawnny, but when she's
saying it in the picture, it's really hard to hear
anything other than Johnny. But Chawnie would be a more
fitting name, I think for an off world robot.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
Right, because Johnny is a killbot. She explains, john Fani
is a mechanical man, a robot with many of the
characteristics of a human. This is hilarious when you see
him later, because he does he's not very much like
a human. But she says, yeah, he's a refrigerator with
arms and legs. But they but she says, oh, but

(55:18):
he is improved by an electronic brain. And then here
we got a bunch of voluntary technobabble from Naya. She
just offers up explanations about how all of her stuff works.
She says, the metal from which her spaceship is constructed
can reproduce itself. And then, weirdly, I don't know why

(55:38):
this is, but we see miss Prestwick outside the door,
like listening in, like she's spying on them. But eventually
she gets Fomo and just sort of comes into the room.
But the professor and 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

(55:59):
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 several hundred years and ended in a bitter,
devastating war between the sexes, the last war we ever had.

(56:19):
Henny here says, So you've had wars too. I was like,
why would you ask that?

Speaker 1 (56:23):
Obviously she just said, they just said that.

Speaker 3 (56:26):
She just said that that. Nia says, all inhabited planets
have had wars. Some have ended by wiping themselves out.
For every new weapon invented, a defense was perfected until
the ultimate weapon was developed, a perpetual motion shaane reactor beam.

Speaker 1 (56:46):
God, this has got to be peak technobabble, Like what
is that even? And then how even I'm failing to
imagine what that could be? Much less hallid is than
utilized in an on planet battle. Queen two factions based
on sex.

Speaker 3 (57:03):
Oh I mean, she explains a little bit. 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 destroyed itself.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
Okay, well, I don't know if that actually helps me any,
but that she's got more to say.

Speaker 3 (57:24):
The professor his comment on this is so there is
a fourth dimension. But Nya explains more. She says, you know,
after the War of the Sexes, women became the rulers
of Mars, but now the male has fallen into a decline.
The birth rate is dropping tremendously. For despite our advanced science,

(57:45):
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 challenged jiz Nia on this. She goes, so you've
come here for new Blood, and I love the way

(58:07):
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. You know they belong here
with us. But Nya just you know, she's not having
any any defiance. She's like, yes, we're here to steal

(58:27):
your males. We're going to kidnap your males and breed
with them. But also we are here to test a
newly invented organic metal 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, I will select some

(58:48):
of your strongest men to return with me to Mars.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
Okay, so it's it's a dual mission.

Speaker 3 (58:53):
Yeah, yeah, it's you know, it's testing out the prototype
metal and it's collecting Earthmen. And Michael Card of the
Earthman says, and if I don't want to go with you,
just assuming he's going to be picked, and Nia says
there is no if. She says, she will take her
pick of quote the Man and subdue London with the

(59:16):
help of a nuclear paralyzer.

Speaker 4 (59:18):
Ray.

Speaker 3 (59:19):
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 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. He says,

(59:43):
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.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
But it's also extra funny given how cold she was
to him earlier. He's like, yeah, He's like, but but
maybe it's me. Maybe I'm the one you should go.

Speaker 3 (59:57):
No, you're a very poor male specimen. But then, oh,
but then one of the funniest parts of the whole movie,
Missus Jamison comes into the room and she sees this
lady here just dressed in this like crazy leather spacesuit,
and Michael Carter says, Missus Jamison, may I introduce your

(01:00:19):
newest guest, miss Nia. She comes from Mars. And then
what does Missus Jamison reply?

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
She says, oh, well that'll mean another bed. Yeah, And
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 was some
good riding there.

Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
Yeah, but then she does a double take.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
By the way, Joe, you included here for 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 have like four, I
don't know, shelves of liquor bottles, and I'm just I'm
suddenly wondering, what are we looking at here?

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Scotch enthusiasts will have to let us know. I really
only know my way around a couple of scotches.

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
Yeah, though it's funny. I just remembered something when Rachel
and I were watching this, you know, with all the
characters that are named Hennessy and Jamison, When when Nya
first came in and Rachel said, my name is cam PARI.

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
That's good. It's a good riff.

Speaker 6 (01:01:36):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:01:36):
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 and they're like he's missing. And
then they all turned to her and they're like, miss Naya,
have you and she says, of course he was no
stud muffin, so I killed him. And Michael Michael Carter

(01:01:58):
gets really mad about this. They have to like him.
He's like trying to punch her or something, and they're
all holding him back.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
I don't know why they felt they needed to establish
that they found him creepy earlier, like that. There was
no payoff for that, Like, yeah, he never did anything
that was creepy, there was no Sometimes you introduce the
stereotypical creepy grounds keeper character because you want to have
him be a suspect in the you know or something,
or you know, or he's creeping around and happens to,

(01:02:26):
you know, run a foul of the Jason or whatever
is running around on the on the grounds. But in
this case, he was just out getting wood. Like, why
did it matter that he was creepy.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
He didn't actually do anything wrong. Yeah, you kind of
gotta feel bad for David, Like, 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
this house, I've drawn an invisible wall. You can't get
through it, so I don't even try to leave. I'm
going to do repairs on my ship and I'll be

(01:02:56):
back to kill you all and maybe take some of
the strongest mans. 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 a quite
funny manner. In fact, keeps leaving and then coming back
to the inn. And then there there are some more

(01:03:17):
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 with the excuse that
he has come to see if she has any scotch.

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
Like like they're old downstairs, Like.

Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
Yeah, no, 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 he's like, you got any
scotch and she says no, but I've got some brandy, okay,
and uh and so, and we get their backstories. Miss
Prestwick talks about how she's in Scotland. Actually she doesn't

(01:04:05):
volunteer this information. He does like a cold reading routine
where he tells her her whole backstory just by I
don't know, by like observing her and I guess it's
all correct, you know. He figures out that she's in
Scotland because she's she's hiding from a married man with
whom she is having an affair. I think he is

(01:04:25):
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 then he says,
now I'm letting my hair down, which was a laugh
out loud moment because he does not have much hair
to let down, right.

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
Oh. But then there's also the invisible wall. This was
a lot of fun because you have a Nya established
that she was going to set a perimeter, an invisible
wall to keep people from leaving. And again, these characters
have been drinking Scotch non stop, and then you have
the professor bumble in.

Speaker 3 (01:05:06):
Right, so they look out the window. Actually, before this, sorry,
before this, Michael and miss 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 that thing out there, and then she says, it
is there. Michael, Yeah, thanks thanks movie. Yes, oh yeah,

(01:05:31):
I remember. Now there is a spaceship outside and they're.

Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
Trying to also an invisible wall though, and.

Speaker 3 (01:05:37):
That's right, well maybe that's the thing they were talking about.
I don't know, is it the spaceship or is it
the robot or the spaceship. But so the professor comes back.
He's got blood on his head now and they're like, Professor,
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

(01:05:58):
that is known to science.

Speaker 1 (01:06:01):
Yeah, I don't know. I just found that also hilarious.

Speaker 3 (01:06:04):
I think this might be the scene with I believe
what my brain tells me to believe, and.

Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
My brain ran into an invisible wall.

Speaker 3 (01:06:13):
Now Here we get the first of a couple of
times where the people at the end try to figure
out how to outsmart Naya. Like there's another scene later
where they set literally set an electrical trap for her,
like in the Thing from Another World, which 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 Naya makes a fabulous entrance.

(01:06:36):
She like throws the doors open and steps in. And
I wish I could like show you the listener out
there a gif of this because it's it's such a
wonderful step in move.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
Yeah, it's very jerious from Labyrinth. Again, there's no owl,
but it has that same energy.

Speaker 3 (01:06:53):
Yes, And they try shooting her with a 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
at stomach level, just going bang bang, And of course

(01:07:14):
the bullets bounce off of Naya because you know, she's
she's perfect, She's she's literally nothing could.

Speaker 1 (01:07:20):
Defeat her, absolutely right.

Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
She says, you pour demented humans to imagine you can
destroy me with your old fashioned toy. What do you
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 going to give him demonstration.
I love it when aliens give a demonstration of their

(01:07:45):
power for a for a crowd of earth onlookers. And
so they so she takes them out to the spaceship
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

(01:08:10):
walks around. He's slow moving, and he hates trees and
he's gonna 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. Yeah,
you don't want to mess with Johnny.

Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
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 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 being kind of like

(01:08:48):
stacked silo cups, but they kind of have that telescoping
energy that matches up with the flying saucer. Well, like
you feel like these are two things from the same
design universe.

Speaker 3 (01:08:58):
Sure, yeah, I can see that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
And again, he's really tall, He's like fifteen feet tall.
Maybe I don't know, he's powering.

Speaker 3 (01:09:05):
She's like, he is like one of your Earth humans,
but with an improved brain. And then Nya, let's see,
oh oh, Albert Simpson, remember him, the convict. He's been
hiding in the attic. Well, he sneaks out of the
window along with Tommy the kid. They both climb down
a tree and they're running around outside. Eventually Nya comes
across them and she's like, ah, this Earth, Tommy, I

(01:09:28):
will take this boy back to Mars with me. And
Tommy literally goes goodie. He wants to go to Mars.
But as you might guess, this turns into 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 Nya that does

(01:09:50):
not work. At one point, Professor Hennessy tricks Naya into
showing him the inside of her spaceship, and the 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

(01:10:11):
of the spaceship and he's gonna get a look at
things to figure out what the weak point inside the
ship is. And you know what he finds out.

Speaker 1 (01:10:20):
Yeah, he's You can imagine him being like like, oh
you should You should see the self destruct mechanisms we
have on earth ships and just like those are nothing.
Look at this self destruct button. Yeah, this mechanism is
far superior.

Speaker 3 (01:10:36):
But the design of the inside of the spaceship is cool.

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
Yeah. I really liked it as well. It has some
some cool angles in it. 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 Jane Voss of sci
fiast dot net that's sci sd I guess it looks

(01:11:01):
like sciphist dot net anyway. This author made this particular comparison,
pointing out that that the the inside of the spaceship
matches up at least a bit with the meditation chamber
of Darth Vader and the Empire strikes Back. They do
a side by side comparison here, and you know, I'm

(01:11:23):
not sure. I one hundred percent am convinced. I think
it's a nifty comparison. 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, so it's I don't know, it's any
connection of nothing else. The author also points to the

(01:11:43):
possible connections between Nia and doctor Frankenforter from the Rocky
Horror Picture Show. Again, I'm not so sure personally, but
maybe there's certainly some shared DNA between Nia and the
likes of Jaff from Labyrinth or Frankenfurter from Rocky Horror,
And I guess you could also make some comparisons in
a different way between Nia and Darth Vader. I mean

(01:12:05):
they're both you know, stunning characters clad in black, shiny
you know, garments and armor.

Speaker 3 (01:12:12):
Yeah, well they both have the black like the shoulder
pads and the and the smooth head piece and the
foot the floor length cape.

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
Yeah. Yeah, so I don't know, maybe so at any rate,
cool ship interior I like it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:24):
Yeah, yeah, So there's a bunch more intrigue. 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,

(01:12:45):
the convict, doing a brave act of 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.

Speaker 1 (01:12:58):
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 saucer effect. It feels dangerous and you know,
almost almost explosive, and it takes off and it's ascending
up in the atmosphere. It's going to leave her this atmosphere,

(01:13:18):
return 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 ship explode, and we already
have a built in kind of they don't really 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 this

(01:13:38):
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 got
a chance to flee the planet, he can flee the
terrestrial legal system entirely and go to Mars, and yeah,
maybe he's going to end up in a eating pod

(01:14:00):
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. So there's kind of
this tension building as you watch the ship go up.
It's like, is he gonna betray everyone out of his
own self interest or is he going to sacrifice himself

(01:14:20):
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. 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

(01:14:44):
extra nice here in black and white, and it looks
really super creepy, like, indeed, like a dangerous piece of
advanced technology from another world just blew up in our atmosphere,
ripped a hole. Perhaps in reality, you know, it looks
like it's created a stain the sky that's going to
stick around for quite some time. But indeed, he came through,

(01:15:06):
He saved the Earth, and the alien threat has been
destroyed or maybe just avoided for a little while. The
Martians maybe won't come back to Earth for a few decades.

Speaker 3 (01:15:20):
Anyway, I agree that explosion looks really cool, 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 Naya like folds herself into
the fourth dimension and disappears.

Speaker 1 (01:15:36):
She becomes blurry and they're like, ah, the fourth dimension.
This is another scene where she's like basically just showing
off how great Martian technology is.

Speaker 3 (01:15:44):
Well, you know, I'd say in the end, Devil Girl
from Mars is great fun. I do recommend it. I
would also say stick around at least until Nya shows up.
It will drag for the first twenty twenty five minutes
or so, but once Nya's on screen, it's a hoot.

Speaker 1 (01:15:59):
Yeah, this one's a lot of fun. Again, some great
design work in here, some fun performances, 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. The ending's pretty solid,
though part of me still thinks that Scotland should have
surrendered and become a breeding colony from Mars. I think

(01:16:20):
I think Nia ultimately she made a good show of force.
She was busting out just a lot of just cold
facts on these poor earthlings. So maybe they should have
gone in the other direction, but still hard to argue
with the solid ending.

Speaker 3 (01:16:36):
That scene where she explains about the negative condensity is just.

Speaker 1 (01:16:41):
Oh so much quality technobabble in this one. I wonder
is there still technobabble of this quality in sci fi
films today?

Speaker 3 (01:16:50):
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, so
am I realistic or plausible or just referencing things that
have no relationship to real words? You know that it
might as well be magic.

Speaker 1 (01:17:08):
Yeah, or you just I guess nowadays you can you
see a lot of the casual invocation of quantum mechanics
or nanobots, and that explains 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 in its skin or something. It comes back
out again and then it's everywhere and it's shooting rockets.

(01:17:31):
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 carbs. Yeah,
it's just carbon nanotudes. 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 technobabble.

Speaker 3 (01:17:48):
You had to come up with phrases like a perpetual
motion chain reactor beam or the negative condensity.

Speaker 1 (01:17:56):
Oh so good. All right, we'll go ahead 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 film,
or or films in a similar genre. Yeah, right in.
We'd love to hear from if you have memories of
catching this film on TV back in the day. Yeah, yeah,

(01:18:16):
We're always always interested to hear those stories. And in
the meantime, Yeah, we're primarily a science podcast with core
episodes on Tuesdays and 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.
I do blog posts about these episodes at simmutamusic dot
com and if you use letterbox, that's L E T

(01:18:39):
T E R bo x D dot com. Well you
can find us on there. Our username 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.

Speaker 3 (01:18:51):
Huge thanks 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 two,
suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at stuffdblow your Mind
dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:19:13):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Devil Girl From Mars