The Night Caller starts at 'Falsley Park, Government Radio & Electronic Research Establishment' where two scientists named Dr. Morley (Maurice Denham) & an American named Dr. Jack Costin (John Saxon) plus their assistant Ann Barlow (Patricia Haines) have detected an unidentified object in space heading for London at 10,000 mph. They assume that it is a meteorite but soon work out that this object is being guided down & has landed somewhere nearby, cue opening credits over Big Ben & the Houses of Parliment just to further prove that we are in fact in London! In no time whatsoever Doctors Costin & Morley are at the calculated crash site, however the army have beaten them to it. But Costin & Morley aren't going to let a little thing like the army stop them so after waving their ID's all over the place they're both giving out orders like they own the place. They speak to the Major (John Carson) in charge & establish the whereabouts of the object. Upon arrival they find a white sphere that appears to be slightly larger than a football, they load it into a jeep & head back to Falsley Park to examine it. Costin & Morley quickly discover that the sphere is alien to our planet & they theorise that it might be a transmitter for sending & receiving matter. Soon after Morley is killed while conducting an experiment on his own & the sphere is stolen, the only clue Costin has is a description by Ann who claims she was attacked by something with a claw for a hand & that 21 girls in under 3 weeks have disappeared & a man fitting the description Ann & some soldiers gave was seen by each girls house shortly before they went missing. Costin visits Scotland Yard & talks to Super Intendant Hartley (Alfred Burke) who is heading the investigation, together they quickly learn that the common factor between the missing girls is a magazine called 'Bikini Girls' which carried an advert to which they all replied. As more girls go missing Costin is convinced that it is connected to the sphere & the mysterious man with the claw, but how exactly...?
Directed by John Gilling I thought The Night Caller was an OK Sci-Fi horror that's a decent enough way to spend 80 odd minutes. The script by Jim O'Connolly based on the novel 'The Night Callers' by Frank Crisp is not quite as predictable as I expected without the cliché of any monsters hiding out in nearby woods occasionally popping up to kill the odd disposable character & is basically split into two half's. The first half of The Night Caller is standard 60's Sci-Fi with the alien object falling form the sky, the army & scientist characters at odds with each other because the scientists see it as a possible way to learn & want to examine it while the army see it as a possible threat & want to destroy it & the monster which is only shown by it's rubbery claw to start with. But for the second half of it's running time The Night Caller switches to police thriller as the investigation into the missing girls come to the fore & the film concentrates on this aspect. Like a lot of other Sci-Fi from this period The Night Caller tries to end on a message as it asks who are the real aggressors & what are we doing to our world... It moves along at a reasonable pace & never becomes boring & I thought the dialogue wasn't quite as stiff & wooden as in most 50's/60's Sci-Fi films. It does seem a little strange that a highly intelligent being from another world capable of space flight & the transmitting of matter has to take an ad out in the back of a magazine called Bikini Girls to attract girls though! The Night Caller is a fairly modest effort & doesn't try to do too much, there is only one monster so don't expect a entire invasion & it's mostly only shown by it's claw hand while when it's face is eventually revealed it looks just like an ordinary man with a few lines on one side of his face. The special effects are kept to an absolute minimum as well, there are just a couple of optical effects throughout the entire film without a flying saucer in sight. There is no blood or gore & only two people die as our alien is revealed to be mostly peaceful at the end & basically means us no harm. The acting wasn't as bad as I had expected either but at the same time it ain't great & Saxon gives a very one dimensional performance. Technically the film is fine with the surprisingly nice sharp free flowing black & white photography being better than I expected, I mean I've seen a lot worse in films such as this. Overall I liked The Night Caller as far as 60' Sci-Fi goes, it didn't knock my socks off or change my life but it's an entertaining way to pass 80 odd minutes. Worth a watch especially if your a fan of this sort of thing.
Directed by John Gilling I thought The Night Caller was an OK Sci-Fi horror that's a decent enough way to spend 80 odd minutes. The script by Jim O'Connolly based on the novel 'The Night Callers' by Frank Crisp is not quite as predictable as I expected without the cliché of any monsters hiding out in nearby woods occasionally popping up to kill the odd disposable character & is basically split into two half's. The first half of The Night Caller is standard 60's Sci-Fi with the alien object falling form the sky, the army & scientist characters at odds with each other because the scientists see it as a possible way to learn & want to examine it while the army see it as a possible threat & want to destroy it & the monster which is only shown by it's rubbery claw to start with. But for the second half of it's running time The Night Caller switches to police thriller as the investigation into the missing girls come to the fore & the film concentrates on this aspect. Like a lot of other Sci-Fi from this period The Night Caller tries to end on a message as it asks who are the real aggressors & what are we doing to our world... It moves along at a reasonable pace & never becomes boring & I thought the dialogue wasn't quite as stiff & wooden as in most 50's/60's Sci-Fi films. It does seem a little strange that a highly intelligent being from another world capable of space flight & the transmitting of matter has to take an ad out in the back of a magazine called Bikini Girls to attract girls though! The Night Caller is a fairly modest effort & doesn't try to do too much, there is only one monster so don't expect a entire invasion & it's mostly only shown by it's claw hand while when it's face is eventually revealed it looks just like an ordinary man with a few lines on one side of his face. The special effects are kept to an absolute minimum as well, there are just a couple of optical effects throughout the entire film without a flying saucer in sight. There is no blood or gore & only two people die as our alien is revealed to be mostly peaceful at the end & basically means us no harm. The acting wasn't as bad as I had expected either but at the same time it ain't great & Saxon gives a very one dimensional performance. Technically the film is fine with the surprisingly nice sharp free flowing black & white photography being better than I expected, I mean I've seen a lot worse in films such as this. Overall I liked The Night Caller as far as 60' Sci-Fi goes, it didn't knock my socks off or change my life but it's an entertaining way to pass 80 odd minutes. Worth a watch especially if your a fan of this sort of thing.