The Night Caller [Blood Beast from Outer Space] *** (1965, John Saxon, Maurice Denham, Patricia Haines, Alfred Burke, John Carson, Jack Watson) – Classic Movie Review 3,961

Teenage girls go missing after answering an alien’s ad in Bikini Girl magazine, in John Gilling’s entertaining and enjoyable 1965 British sci-fi thriller The Night Caller [Blood Beast from Outer Space].

Director John Gilling injects some style into the rather entertaining and enjoyable 1965 slice of low-budget second feature British sci-fi thriller The Night Caller (also known as Night Caller from Outer Space, and as Blood Beast from Outer Space).

It is produced by Ronald Liles, made by Armitage Film Productions and released by Butcher’s Film Service (UK). It may be cheaply made, but the film makes the most of its low production values.

The era’s mandatory minor American visiting star John Saxon comes over to the UK to play the lead, Dr Jack Costain. He is backed up by the era’s usual strong cast of British stalwarts – Maurice Denham, Patricia Haines, Alfred Burke, John Carson, Jack Watson, Warren Mitchell, Stanley Meadows, Ballard Berkeley, Aubrey Morris, Anthony Wager and Robert Crewdson – making a notable impression and a useful contribution. Rounding up the acting usual suspects was always a good idea back in the day.

Maurice Denham plays British scientist Dr Morley, who, along with Dr Jack Costain, detects a meteorite heading to Earth. They then investigate a meteorite in the British countryside and find it is an alien device from Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter. 

Screen-writer Jim O’Connolly’s thoughtful if implausible science fiction fantasy screenplay about an extra-terrestrial mutant arriving from the infertile planet Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon, to abduct Earth girls for genetic reproduction reasons is adapted from Frank Crisp’s 1961 novel The Night Callers.

Teenage girls then begin to go missing after answering the alien’s wanted advertisement in Bikini Girl magazine.

And implausible? Interesting! The best science fiction is plausible, ‘able to be believed’, ‘sounds as if it could be true’ and ‘apparently reasonable, valid or truthful but not necessarily so’. Here things are ‘not seeming reasonable or likely to be true’ or ‘having the appearance of truth or credibility’. Nevertheless, The Night Caller is still thoughtful and entertaining.

It is shot by Stephen Dade and runs 85 minutes.

The undervalued John Saxon stars in his first science fiction film.

The score is composed and directed by John Gregory. The UK print features over the opening credits Alan Haven’s version of the hit instrumental ‘Image’. The foreign print instead has a lounge number called ‘The Night Caller’ written by Albert Hague and sung by Mark Richardson.

It plays regularly on the UK’s Talking Pictures TV.

A colorised version was released in 2011.

Ganymede is a natural satellite of Jupiter and the largest moon in the solar system.

The cast 

The cast are John Saxon as Dr Jack Costain, Maurice Denham as Dr Morley, Patricia Haines as Ann Barlow, Alfred Burke as Detective Superintendent Hartley, John Carson as the Major, Warren Mitchell as Reg Lilburn, Marianne Stone as Madge Lilburn, Stanley Meadows as Detective Tom Grant, Aubrey Morris as Thorburn, Ballard Berkeley as Commander Savage, Geoffrey Lumsden as Colonel Davy, Tom Gill as Police Commissioner’s secretary, Jack Watson as Sergeant Hawkins, Barbara French as Joyce Malone, Anthony Wager and Robert Crewdson.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3,961

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com