Lippert Pictures Series

Robert L. Lippert controlled a successful low-budget American film production and distribution company from 1948 to 1956, producing short, fast-paced westerns and crime films with a penchant for obligatory humor, and the occasional jarring edits. This is my fifth of eight Lippert films.

THE FLYING SAUCER (1950)

This American, independently made Soviet spy drama was produced, written and starred the average-looking Mikel Conrad—not Comrade. This film established his single directing credit. Occasionally, one person in charge of all aspects of a film can make an impact. Allen Baron is a great example with his 1961 crime film, Blast of Silence In contrast, the result here is clumsy filmmaking. Denver Pyle and Roy “B-movie” Engel are the best-known faces while much of the cast turns in excellent high school performances.

Intelligence officials learn that Soviet spies have begun exploring a remote region of the Alaskan Territory concerning worldwide reports of flying saucers. Conrad, raised in that region, is recruited because his credentials as a wealthy American playboy are best suited to handle an undercover assignment to assist a Secret Service agent. He is not excited—too much work. Then he admires his reflection in a mirror and is introduced to the female agent, Pat Garrison. There are lots of frames eaten up by bucolic, black-and-white Alaskan scenery, a picnic, and melodramatic music. Conrad is to pretend he is suffering from a nervous breakdown—trying to control this film perhaps—with Garrison acting as his private nurse. The charade seems to be a moot point throughout the film.

Clad in plaid, “Mr. Terrific” is very skeptical of flying saucer reports until he hears one slice over his Alaskan lodge. Probably a meteor, he thinks. The saucer is real, an invention of American scientist, Roy Engel, whose mechanic, Denver Pyle, is a greedy communist spy with a plan: get in on the ground floor of the Soviet Frisbee cartel. Conrad has to deal with Soviet agents in Juneau, a barmaid and his own drunken stupor, an avalanche, and the rescue of his phony private nurse—all of which approach mundane. Conrad, Garrison and Engel see light at the end of a secret Soviet tunnel just in time to spot Pyle being "saucered." The Soviets can learn a lot from reverse engineering. To prevent this, Engel installed an after-market accessory. At a certain altitude, the saucer explodes with smaller Pyles scattered about.

Note: This seventy-five-minute science fiction film was distributed in the United States by Film Classics Inc. It is the first feature film to deal with the era's hot topic of flying saucers. I imagine those who bought tickets for this international spy yarn were ticked off that it has nothing to do with the poster. The single saucer in this film is more akin to a reconnaissance drone. Flying disks were first given the film's title name in 1947 by a private pilot who reported nine silvery, crescent-shaped objects flying in tight formation. Some chose to take him at his word.