Posters of my yoot’: ‘I Dig a Pygmy’ by Charles Hawtrey and the Deaf Aids

Nothing looks that cool in the movie; click to enlarge

Hats off again to the way kewl Wrong Side of the Art for these two items from my fifty-cent matinee years. Some cockeyed sage over at Amazon calls They Came from Beyond Space (1967) “a classic movie directed by Freddie Francis, and starring Robert Hutton; Jennifer Jayne; Zia Mohyeddin. It is widely considered to be one of the top 100 greatest classic films of all time. This great film will surely attract a whole new generation of classic movie fans. And for seasoned cinematic connoseuirs [sic], They Came from Beyond Space (1967) [sic] will rekindle an era of film making at its best. For others who simply enjoy watching timeless pieces with icons such as Robert Hutton; Jennifer Jayne; Zia Mohyeddin, They Came from Beyond Space (1967) [double sic] is highly recommended. Re-released by Reel Classic Films this movie would make an ideal gift and it should be a part of everyone’s personal DVD library.” Dude! WTF?!?

    The first and only time I ever saw this British movie was in 1967 at the Bellmore Playhouse. All I remember is that it was really boring. (No monsters!) Even at the age of ten, I was sort-of a fan of Michael Gough because he’d been in Horror of Dracula, Konga and Horrors of the Black Museum, but he didn’t show up in They Came from Beyond Space until the last few minutes. The star was granite-faced American Robert Hutton, who I knew from stuff shown over and over (and over) on Chiller Theatre: The Man Without a Body (second-billed to a very needy George Coulouris), The Colossus of New York, Invisible Invaders, and the remarkable Slime People, which he inexplicably directed as well as starred. In They Came from Outer Space there’s a metal plate in Hutton’s head preventing his abduction by Gough’s aliens. A quick fix for insomnia, you can watch the whole sorry thing in eight creaky parts on YouTube.

    For their Saturday matinee, the Playhouse paired it with…

Click to enlarge

    The Terrornauts (1967) was also made in the UK. Both films were produced by Milton Subotsky and Max J. Rosenberg, the founding fathers of Amicus Productions, known among horror Pupkins as ‘The Studio That Dripped Blood.’

    Based on a novel I’ve never read, The Wailing Asteroid by Murray Leinstar, The Terrornauts seemed downright groovy in 1967. When it came out on VHS twenty years ago, I still found it amusing, stupid, and undeniably spirited. It’s about a science lab lifted off the ground, building and staff, transported to an alien space station where they’re handed instructions on how to prevent an intergalactic war… or something like that. The intriguing British cast includes TV star Simon Oates as the scientist-time traveler, former Bond girl Zena Marshall as his main squeeze (Miss Taro in Dr. No, Zena passed away this July at the age of 83), Benny Hill regular Patricia Hayes as a Cockney cleaning lady (“Aww, go’on, ducks!”), stiff-upper-Brit Max Adrian as a villainous authority figure, apple-gobbling Stanley Meadows (Rosey in Performance), and — be still my beating heart — Charles Hawtrey, stone-cold sober in the role of ‘Joshua Yellowlees.’ Charles frikkin’ Hawtrey!! In outer space! How can you resist?

Two-Moon Junction: Anyone born after a certain date would find its special effects sub-cheesy, but The Terrornauts held its pre-teen viewers spellbound in 1967. I remember the first shot of the planet with two moons elicited a few “Wow! Cool!”s from the pubescent audience.

Terrornauts trailer!