THE FLYING SAUCER (1950)
Article #187 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 9-19-2001
Posting date: 2-2-2002

From the title, you’d think this movie would be about visiting aliens from another world. Well, let’s find out.

SPOILERS A-PLENTY AHEAD (If you just want a hint as to what the movie is about, just scan through quickly and look at the words in caps.)

In the SNOW-covered lands of Alaska, there have been sightings of a flying saucer. One old woman is so terrified after seeing one, she turns to the camera and screams, the sounds reverberating back and forth across the SNOW-covered landscape. (You have now seen the good part of the movie).

Our governement decides to investigate the sightings, so they send a hard-drinking playboy to the SNOW-covered wilds of Alaska, along with their own agent, disguised as the playboy’s nurse. They take a long cruise up to Juneau, where we, the viewers, are treated to many shots of the beautiful SNOW-covered scenery.

When they reach the cabin in the middle of a field covered with SNOW, they meet the caretaker, whom nobody has met before and who acts suspicious and speaks with a Russian accent. They don’t suspect he’s a Russian spy sent to kill them and leave their dead bodies in the SNOW. They now embark on their ingenious method of investigating the saucer, which involves waiting around for something to fall into their laps (which gives them ample time to shovel the SNOW, have SNOWball fights, make SNOW angels, build SNOW forts, and try to build a romance). The spy makes some pathetic attempts to knock them off, but someone keeps entering the room and spoiling his plans; apparently he figures he doesn’t have a SNOWball’s chance in hell of knocking them off at the same time.

Eventually, the playboy comes to the conclusion that there is a flaw in their ingenious scheme, so he decides to pursue HIS plan, which is to go to Juneau, get stinking drunk, and wander around from bar to SNOW-covered bar to find old friends. Amazingly, this works, as he encounters a friend who is in the employ of Russian spies who are also hunting for a flying saucer in the SNOW-covered wilds of Alaska. The spies kill the friend, and beat up the playboy, who is left to die but is saved by the nurse when she spots his body, which must have stood out quite well against the milky whiteness of the SNOW.

He recovers and rents a plane which flies for five minutes over MANY ACRES AND ACRES OF SNOW. He finds a shed with a flying saucer in it, and so he flies back the way he came, once again giving us a view of the SAME MANY ACRES OF SNOW we saw on his flight out. He gets back in time to be kidnapped by Russian spies, along with the nurse and the scientist who build the saucer, and they take a long journey in a tunnel that runs under the SNOW-covered mountains. When they’re almost to the shed, the playboy tricks one of the spies into firing his gun, causing an avalanche which drops TONS OF SNOW on the heads of all but one of the spies. The survivor of the spies runs to the shed and takes off in the saucer, not noticing the safety device the scientist had installed (a bomb), which goes off, destroying the spy and the saucer, scattering little pieces of them over the VAST SNOW-COVERED LANDSCAPES OF ALASKA, where there is a plenteous bounty of SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW.

I think you know what the movie is about by now.