Main Cast: Paul Birch, Beverly Garland, Morgan Jones, William Roerick, Jonathan Haze
Release Year: 1957
Country: US
Run Time: 67 minutes
Plot
One of Roger Corman's finest science-fiction endeavors of the 1950s, Not of This Earth is an excellent film by any standards. Paul Birch stars as Johnson, a taciturn gentleman in a dark business suit who hires nurse Nadine (Beverly Garland) to care for him. Curious that Johnson needs constant blood transfusions, Dr. Rochelle (William Roerick), Nadine's boss, discovers to his horror that Johnson has no blood of his own! Before he can make this information public, Rochelle is telepathically enslaved by the emotionless Johnson. It soon develops that Johnson is a space alien, sent from his home planet to see if the blood of earthlings can be used by his dying race -- the first step in their ultimate takeover of the world. The scenes involving hyperkinetic vacuum salesman Piper (Dick Miller) are the film's highlights, simultaneously hilarious and horrifying. Originally released on a double bill with Attack of the Crab Monsters, Not of This Earth was indifferently remade twice, in 1988 and 1996. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Few people rattled off B-movies faster and better than Roger Corman, and Not of This Earth (one of ten -- yes, ten -- films that Corman released in 1957) ranks with the best of his black-and-white 1950s sci-fi epics, before he hit his stride with his famous cycle of color/widescreen Edgar Allan Poe movies in the early 1960s. Dispensing with rubber monsters for most of the movie's running time, Corman presents the first wave of an alien invasion in the form of one guy (played by Paul Birch) in a dark suit and sunglasses. While budget may have dictated this interstellar reconnaissance force, the low-key invader actually works to the film's benefit; Birch gives his character a suitably creepy, affectless menace, and, from the first moment we see him, he seems strange enough that we know something's not right with this guy, even if he may not look like a martian. Leading lady Beverly Garland (who at this time was Corman's love interest offscreen) gives a firm and capable performance, keeping the screaming to a minimum and exuding a unruffled cool that's a refreshing switch from the usual shrieking damsel in distress. And Corman stalwarts Jonathan Haze and Dick Miller deliver witty performances as a lanky bodyguard-cum-errand boy and the world's first beatnik vacuum cleaner salesman. Fast, efficient, and spooky, with just the right amount of tongue-in-cheek humor, Not of This Earth never pretends to be more than good fun -- and it's never less than that either. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Dick Miller - Joe Piper, vacuum salesman; Roy Engel - Sgt. Walton; Tamar Cooper - Joanna Oxford; Harold Fong - Speciman; Gail Ganley - Teenage girl; Ralph Reed - Teenage boy; Anna Lee Carroll - Woman of Planet Davanna; Pat Flynn - Officer Simmons
The film starred Paul Birch, Beverly Garland, Morgan Jones and William Roerick in a story about a humanoid agent, transported to Earth from the fictional planet Davanna, where a blood-degenerating plague is killing the populace. His mission is to find compatible blood in Earth humans to send back to his home planet for transfusion purposes; to achieve his ends, he is empowered by death-ray emitting eyes and a nightmarish flying octopus-like creature with vampiric capabilities.
