Supersonic Saucer

(1956, U.K.) black and white 50 minutes
A Children's Film Foundation Production
distributed in the UK by Gaumont British Picture Corporation
distributed in the US by Walter Reade Organization
Story: Frank Wells
Screenplay: Dallas Bower
Music: Jack Beaver
Meba by John Wright Puppeteers and P. B. Cow Ltd.
Sound: Maurice Askew
Produced by Frank Wells
Directed by S.G. Ferguson

With: Marcia Manolescue (Sumac), Gillian Harrison (Greta), Fella Edmonds (Rodney), Andrew Notte-Harrison (Adolphus), Tony Lyons (Number Thirteen), Hilda Fenemore (Mother), Donald Gray (Headmaster), Patrick Boxill (Mr. Pole), Raymond Rollett (Number One), Pat Connor (Number Twenty-Nine), Annaconda (Number Seven), Garth Adams (Police Sgt), Hugh Munro (Bank Clerk), Carter Bathurst (Bank Manager)

***

SYNOPSIS: Somewhere in Great Britain, a group of schoolchildren visit the local planetarium. While looking through the giant telescope, one young lad, Rodney, sees what appears to be a flying saucer circling the planet Venus. Nobody believes him, however, and the class returns to school.

Two young girls, Greta and Sumac, must stay at school for the holidays, as their parents are in Norway and Central America, respectively. They watch unhappily as the other children gleefully board the bus to take them to their loved ones. The girls are to stay with Rodney and his father, who is the school's headmaster. The children help the schoolmaster put the school's numerous valuable trophies back into the locksafe. As they do, the school's groundskeeper watches sneakily from an outside window. He grabs his bicycle and rides to the nearest pay phone, where he calls a colleague, known only as Number One, and informs them of the booty at the school. Number One intends to steal the trophies later in the week! The groundskeeper, aka Number Thirteen, rides off, only to puncture his tire on a board.

Back at school, Rodney condescendingly informs Greta and Sumac that although he has been elected by his father to watch after them while the elders are away, he will actually be too busy with his scientific studies to spend much time with them; he intends on becoming "a cosmic scientist!" Outside, a small boy named Adolphus finishes reading the funny papers, dons a toy space helmet, and tries to scare the girls by peeking in the window and crying, "I'm the Man from Outer Space!" The girls are less than impressed, however, and tell him to get lost.

The girls soon become weary of their studies, and run to the playground for a swing. Nearby, the groundskeeper repairs his flat tire. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a flying saucer approaches! It swoops down from the sky, and attracts the attention of both the girls and the groundskeeper. The saucer lands in a nearby tree, and miraculously transforms into a living creature! The girls carefully approach the cute little buy-eyed alien and offer him some candy, but it appears he has no mouth. The girls immediately develop a telepathic repore with the creature, and learn that he is from Venus, and likes them very much!

The girls pick up the creature and take it with them. However, the headmaster's dog, Juno, comes running and barking. The creature rolls its eyes, and sends Juno back to the school in reverse! Soon, Rodney is inspecting the strange creture, and declaring it looks more like "amoeba protea than amoeba dubia." Greta then dubs the creature "Meba." Sumac then connects telepathically with Meba, and is able to see his home, Venus. All Meba's peers begin life as little creatures, and soon develop into flying saucers. Meba, however, was a slow learner, and when he finally matured into a flying saucer, he was so happy that he flew right off the planet into outer space!

Happy that Meba has decided to visit them, the children then turn to their suppers, which are so dull, they wish out loud that they had cakes and pastries to eat instead. Hearing their wish, and wanting to please his new friends, Meba turns into a saucer and heads to the nearby "Dutch Oven" bakery, where he promptly steals all their cakes, cookies and pies! He dumps the feast on the dining room table, to the childrens' mystification. At first, the children are so delighted by the surprise that they begin to gorge on the sweets, but soon they realize that the food is stolen, and must be returned. Meba swiftly replies, and returns the goodies to the bakery post haste.

Rodney mentions in passing that it is cold inside the school, and casually wishes for a fire. Meba promptly responds, by setting the school on fire! Rodney pleads with Meba to remove the fire, and the Venusian does so, with no damage to the building. Meba then starts to cry, and Sumac intuits that the creature is frustrated, because he only wants to help his fickle new friends, who wish for things and then change their minds.

The children decide to retire for the evening, and the girls put Meba tobed in their room, in a little doll's crib. Greta starts to cry, because she is homesick for her parents, so Sumac moves her bed next to hers. The two girls start to chat, and they wish out loud for a million pounds, so that they could return home to their parents for the holidays. Meba hears the wish, of course, and sneaks off to the local bank! Elsewhere, the groundskeeper consults his boss, the mysterious Number One, who makes plans to rob the school's safe the very next day! As they plot, Meba absconds the bank's inevntory.

The next morning, the girls wake up to find the huge stash of money sitting on the dining room table, waiting for them. They are horrified by the theft, and ask Meba to return to money immediately. Meba rushes to the scene, and spies on the bank officers as they ponder the mysterious theft, but he considers it to dangerous to return the money in broad daylight. Rodney decides the stash the money in the safe for the time being. As they hide the money, the groundskeeper looks in in disbelief. He rushes off to tell his boss, Number One, about the money and the flying saucer, but the thug is incredulous.

That night, after Meba takes off with the money, Number One's henchman approach the house. They find no money, but take the trophies. Later, Number One fires the groundskeeper for his error. The jilted groundskeeper decides to catch the flying saucer in order to earn his boss' good favor again. He manages to corner Meba and coerce him into joining him, thinking he will take him to his child-friends. The groundskeeper convinces the innocent Venusian to fly into a strongbox, which the villain of course promptly locks up.

The next day, the headmaster and his wife have returned, and laugh over breakfast at newspaper reports of flying saucers. Elsewhere, the groundskeeper presents the box with Meba to Number One. Meba, understanding that he is in danger, begins to send out a distress signal. Meanwhile, the children note Meba's abscence, and fear for his safety. In fact, they all hear telepathic distress signals from the trapped Venusian. Sumac suggests that the three go in separate directions, in order to better locate the missing alien.

Soon, Sumac has followed the distress signal to the crooks' hideout, and wanders around outside. Greta soon joins her. The crooks attempt to nab the girls, but they are too clever for the bumbling adults. Eventually, Rodney and Adolphus also locate the hideout. Greta makes a daring attempt to rescue Meba from Number One's office, and manages to release the Venusian in front of the baffled thug. Meba flies directly to a pay phone and places an emergency call to the police. He then places a stack of hay in the attic of the house and starts a small fire in order to attract help.

The children soon join Meba, just as the thugs approach. Meba manages to send the crooks down the stairs every time they make some headway towards our heroes. The fire department arrives just in time to capture the crooks and offer a reward to the children, enough money in fact for Greta and Sumac to visit their parents for the holidays! Soon, Greta and Sumac are preparing to leave. Meba declares that he too, will return home. As the limousine carrying Greta and Sumac drives off into the distance, Meba flies off to Venus, his home.

***

SUPERSONIC SAUCER is a delightful children’s fantasy, well depicting postwar Britain, and especially a privileged childhood therein. Filmed in that evocative neo-realist misc en scene which so identifies the period, and is common to other films produced for kiddies by the Children’s Film Foundation (THE MONSTER OF HIGHGATE PONDS and ONE WISH TOO MANY come to mind), this film leaves the urban setting of the aforementioned films for a pastoral countryside of boarding schools and playgrounds and country lanes and gangster hide-outs, a setting which in the US might be called “the Suburbs.”

The heroes of the piece are of course the three charming child actors who give the film such an endearing quality. The girls Sumac and Greta, particularly, as portrayed by Marcia Manolescue and Gillian Harrison respectively, (and who are top-billed, by the way) are interesting pre-feminist archetypes, strong, courageous and resourceful creatures who are able to work around the repressive patriarchal system they are imprisoned and eventually threatened by. It is no accident that they share telepathic repore to the highly evolved Venusian, who is surely a New-Age symbol of egalitarian evolution.

The adults, understandably, are all a bit daffy, especially in a somewhat ridiculous subplot about a modern-day Fagan operation run by men who are identified only by number (predating Patrick McGoohan’s THE PRISONER by a decade!)

The more fantastic elements of the screenplay are winningly brought to life via crude animation for the flying saucer scenes, and winning puppetry for the Venusian, “Meba.” Meba is a simple yet effective puppet with very expressive eyes. Most exciting is a wonderful scene taking place on Venus, complete with an elemental yet effective alienscape.

For trivia hounds, there is some excellent footage of vintage British firefighting equipment which may be worth seeking out for its own sake.

It has been written elsewhere that this film must have been the uncredited prototype for Steven Spielberg’s cute-alien blockbuster, E.T. (1982). Many elements of the two films, including the emphasis on children heroes, and especially the creature’s design, are observed to be remarkably similar in each case. We wholeheartedly agree with this assessment, and accuse arrogant hack Spielberg not only with plagiarism, but with taking a charming and simple story and wasting enough money to take all the heart out of the lugubrious, treacly remake! Let’s go further, and call E.T. an unauthorized, and botched remake of SUPERSONIC SAUCER. Shame, shame, shame! Ironically enough, the low-budget and primitive SUPERSONIC SAUCER has all the charm and wonder which Speilberg’s bloated, soulless clinker can only but wish for. Here, here for SUPERSONIC SAUCER!