DEVIL GIRL FROM MARS (1954)
Article #523 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 8-20-2002
Postng date: 1-13-2003

A spaceship from Mars lands near an inn in Scotland, and a female Martian named Nyah holds the residents prisoner in preparation for an invasion. She is intent on capturing men for breeding purposes.

The above description seems to promise, if not necessarily a good movie, at least a certain amount of campy fun; however, the funniest thing about it is in the credits, where it is announced that the movie was based on a play. There’s something mind-blowing about being made aware that there is a play out there called “Devil Girl From Mars”; it also clues you in on just how talky and stagebound this epic will prove to be. I don’t know how good the play was, but the script for the movie is awful; the dialogue is trite, repetitive, and endless (I find myself wondering if someone dropped the script on the ground and picked the pages up in the wrong order before taking it to the printers; the scenes do seem scattered about at random), and the movie never establishes a decent pace, as it seems that every time a scene comes along that catches your interest, instead of keeping the pace going and building your interest further, it follows it with talky scenes that have little to do with the action just before it that bring the story to a screeching halt again and again. If the characters were compelling in any way, it might make a difference, but alas, they’re all as dull as dishwater; even Nyah is given nothing to do but recite rotten speechy dialogue endlessly. The flying saucer is the best thing about the movie; it looks great, and the robot is fun if a little clumsy. I’m sure some people will seek this out in the hope that it will be really bad; I wonder if they would if they knew just how dull it was.