Treeline Films has been cranking out extremely cheap DVD box sets in recent years. Usually they squeeze fifty movies into twelve disks, and the production quality can be abysmal, but for me that's just a bonus. Don't expect frills, extras, or pristine prints, but if you like obscure and incoherent badfilms, some of these boxes are little treasure troves that can be had for twenty bucks.
They Came From Beyond Space can be found in Treeline's SciFi Classics box. It's a 1967 British alien invasion flick which dates itself with its Lalo Schifirin-ish score and cheesy psychedelic effects. These resemble those "hip" drive-in refreshment clips that they used in the 70s to sell hot dogs and popcorn to stoners and acid heads, after the counter culture movement had made audiences too jaded to be influenced by dancing, anthropomorphized soft drinks.
TCFBS scores reasonably well with its sets and wardrobe. Through much of the film, the protagonist (Robert Hutton as Dr. Curtis Temple) wears a bland taupe windbreaker more suitable for squirrel hunting than for rescuing Earth from alien conquest. His romantic interest, Jennifer Jayne as Dr. Lee Mason, sports a beehive that would work in any Scopitones video, and their laboratory inexplicably has a lava lamp sitting on a shelf mounted to simulated wood wall paneling. I'd be curious to hear the conversation which led to its inclusion. Did they think a lava lamp looked scientific, in the same way that tesla coils were used in the 50s? Maybe when the deluxe edition is released we can find out. There's also a gaudy floor mural depicting the sun surrounded by planets, giving the room the look of a defunct organic grocery where someone is temporarily storing crappy office furniture.
The story is predictable but there's plenty of unintentional absurdity to keep it moving, particularly during the last twenty minutes or so. Meteors land in Cornwall, and since they land in a perfect "V" shape, top extraterrestrial scientists need to be brought in to investigate. Dr. Temple is forbidden from participating, due to a recent surgery involving the installation of a silver plate in his head. His girlfriend and some other scientists are sent, but are quickly mind warped by the aliens via some glowing blue rocks. They then set about the work of building a compound with complex underground laboratories and tunnels, and a launching pad that comes up out of a lake and shoots missiles to the moon. Amazingly, they put all of this together in a few days, bypassing labor costs by mind warping a bunch of other guys in squirrel hunting jackets. It's amazing what industry can accomplish if you can just get OSHA out of the way.
Eventually, reports of wacky shit at the compound gets back to Dr. Temple, and one of the aliens/scientists comes to pick him up because they need his knowledge, but they soon discover that they can't control him because the silver plate in his head stymies the effect of the blue rocks.
His interest piqued, he drives to Cornwall in an antique car, meets a gas station attendant who looks like Petulia Clark, but who eventually turns out to be another alien, then spends a huge amount of time coming up with different ways to get into the compound, boring the living shit out of me in the process. Eventually he gets a rifle and shoots out a transformer to disable the electric fence. This allows him to enter and move around at will, since the rest of the alien compound apparently has as much security as Baghdad did in 2003 during post-invasion looting.
He kidnaps his girlfriend, takes her to see a guy named "Farge," and after they realize they can melt down Farge's trophies and build vegetable strainers to wear on their heads, they invent a special ray gun that reverses the effects of the blue rocks. Incredibly, they do this without a lava lamp or any practical knowledge of the problem at hand. Science kicks ass. So they un-brainwash his girlfriend, go back to the compound, make their way onto a rocket ship and get blasted to the moon. Once on the moon, the hilarity picks up, since Michael Gough as the "Master of the Moon" really overplays his role, shooting for Shakespeare where a few belches would suffice. The moon guys wear these great pastel colored robes and say things like: Conquer and rule earth? Why should we want to do that? What possible satisfaction or glory could we find in ruling a race whose most intelligent life force is little more than primitive savages compared with our vast knowledge? You know, the usual blustery shit that aliens say five minutes before they're foiled by a paper clip or a golden retriever.
Along the way, there's also a fake alien plague that makes everyone break out with horrible acne, some flowery orange, yellow, and olive green drapes, and guards who couldn't hit the Astrodome with submachine guns after a month of target practice.
The ending is a hoot, with the aliens going from world conquest to groveling surrender after thirty seconds of dueling a guy with a vegetable strainer on his head. It's certainly not essential viewing, but as an antidote to a rainy day or a weekend hangover, you could do much worse.
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