Not of This Earth (1957)

An alien agent from the distant planet Davana is sent to Earth via a high-tech matter transporter. There, he terrorizes Southern California in an attempt to acquire blood for his dying race, the result of a devastating nuclear war.

Director:

Roger Corman

Writers:

Charles B. Griffith (screenplay) (as Charles Griffith), Mark Hanna (screenplay)

Stars:

Paul Birch, Beverly Garland, Morgan Jones

Cast

Cast overview:
Paul Birch	...	Paul Johnson
Beverly Garland	...	Nadine Storey
Morgan Jones	...	Harry Sherbourne
William Roerick	...	Dr. F.W. Rochelle
Jonathan Haze	...	Jeremy Perrin
Dick Miller	...	Joe Piper (as Richard Miller)
Anna Lee Carroll	...	Davanna Woman (as Anne Carroll)
Pat Flynn	...	Simmons
Barbara Bohrer	...	Waitress
Roy Engel	...	Sgt. Walton
Tamar Cooper	...	Joanne
Harold Fong	...	Speciman
Lyle Latell	...	(scenes deleted)
Gail Ganley	...	Girl
Ralph Reed	...	Boy

Storyline

An alien agent from the distant planet Davana is sent to Earth via a high-tech matter transporter. There, he terrorizes Southern California in an attempt to acquire blood for his dying race, the result of a devastating nuclear war.

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Plot Keywords:

pay phone | blood | alien | outer space | binocular microscope | 

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Taglines:

Somewhere in this world stalks a thing that is...

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Genres:

Horror | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

10 February 1957 (USA)

Also Known As:

Emisario de otro mundo

Filming Locations:

Griffith Observatory, 2800 E Observatory Rd, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$100,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Los Altos Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

67 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This was the final theatrical feature film to be shot by veteran director of photography John J. Mescall, ending a career of about 35 years going back to the silent days.

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Goofs

Unlike another poster who mentioned Nadine and Harry in the kitchen, it's the Doctor and Johnson in the living room discussing blood evaporation where the boom mike is indeed clearly visible. As the 2 get up towards the door, the shadow on the wall plainly shows not only the length of the boom, but the stage hand holding it.

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Quotes

Paul Johnson: In the place from which I come, no person would dare sleep in insecure quarters.

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Connections

Referenced in Drive-in Movie Memories (2001)

User Reviews

A Corman Classic !

Or another nice summary, might be "Blood donors needed at Mr. Johnson's house"! One of Corman's finest! Directed by prolific director Roger Corman, Corman rises above the low budget and creates a classic! This is a very enjoyable science fiction horror thriller! I first seen it when I was very young boy a long time ago. I like it and all my friends liked it! A nice intelligently imaginative script from writers Charles B. Griffith and Mark Hanna. Corman directed it at a rapid pace and it works! The plot moves quick and does not become stagnate! The whole cast is excellent.Perfectly cast as Mr. Johnson is Paul Birch! He is a vampire like alien from outer space, he needs human blood to survive! He is from a dying planet called Davanna, basically he is a scout sent to earth to prepare the way for his planet's take over! Mr. Johnson has to wear dark sunglasses to hide his eyes which are white and have no pupils! He also has the ability to incinerate a human's brains by merely taking off his sun glasses, and looking into their eyes! Not the kind of guy you want as a friend!

At the beginning we see Birch's first victim the cute actress Gail Ganley. He also has a nice teleportation machine in his living room, which he uses to transport human specimens back to his planet Davanna. Birch wears a sporty wide brim black fedora and Brooks Brother's suit with black sun glasses. Beautiful actress Beverly Garland is nurse Nadine, who gives Mr. Johnson daily blood transfusion, so she lives in his house. Slowly but surely she starts to suspect Mr. Johnson of being a little "different"!! Garland is a wonderful actress, I always enjoyed her acting she has a magnificent intensity! She helps to make this film a pleasure. Also in the cast is another talented actor Jonathan Haze (The Little Shop Of Horrors)(Teenage Caveman) formally from Pittsburgh PA.,Haze worked for Corman in many films. Haze plays Mr. Johnson's chauffeur Jeremy, together Nadine and Jeremy start to become a sort of a detective team as they start finding out different strange events about Mr. Johnson.

A nice large old house is used for interior shots and adds to the bizarre dark atmosphere! Also in the film, is actor Dick Miller, another Corman regular, who is a more than a capable actor who does another fine job in this role! He adds a nice comedic touch to the film as a vacuum cleaner salesman, who unwittingly becomes another "blood donor" for Mr. Johnson! His body ends up in the cellar furnace! As the doctor that Nadine works for, doctor Rochelle (William Rodrick) he also suspects something is amiss too! So he is dispersed by Mr. Johnson! In what is a eerie bizarre moody scene, we see a umbrella like alien monster that flies or floats through a open window,and goes over the head of Mr. Johnson's adversary, Dr. Rochelle's head! It then proceeds to dissipate his head, then we see blood running down onto the table, fairly gruesome stuff for that period! The unique looking monster was designed by the highly talented Paul Blaisdell! In the meantime Beverly's boyfriend Morgan Jones, as officer Sherbourne is also investigating Johnson. A alien woman goes through the teleportation machine and arrives at Johnson's house, she tells him she needs blood. He breaks into a blood blank and gets "rabid" blood! Towards the end we see Johnson in his car chasing Nadine trying to catch her and trying to rid her of her brains! This is a great memorable scene, as she is running very fast for her life, and he is chasing her in the car you can hear him calling out to her telepathically, now its been a while since I seen the movie so I might be incorrect on some of the words but it is definitely a classic! He cries out, Nadine! Nadine! "Look at my eyes they are alien-n-n-n-n!!" In fact me and a old friend sometimes use to say the line out loud for a long time after we seen the film! You got to like this film, what fun! It was released by Allied Artists who also was the old Monogram Pictures, Allied Artists released a lot of fine gems during this period including (The Indestructible Man) (Attack Of The Crab Monsters)( The Attack Of The Fifty Foot Woman) (The Wasp Woman) and many others.I always enjoyed the word monologues at the beginning of these Allied Artist films some where I heard that these were not in the original prints but were added on later when Allied sold the movies to television in the 1960s? I got a video tape of it a while back, and the print was very very dark, are there any excellent prints out there on video tape? This film like John Agar's (Hand Of Death) is a hard film to find on video tape, I would love to have one! My hats off to Roger Corman and all concerned on making a excellent film, most highly recommended!!!!!!