The Flying Saucer
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Mikel Conrad
Mikel Conrad
Pat Garrison
Hantz Von Teuffen
Lester Sharpe
Russell Hicks
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Amid newspaper reports of flying saucer sightings all over the country, intelligence officer Hank Thorn summons wealthy playboy Mike Trent to Washington, D.C. Hank explains that the vehicles appear to have been designed to carry atomic weapons, and that America must capture this technology before the Russians do. He tells Mike that according to an undercover agent in Juneau, Alaska, Russian military officers are searching for the saucer near the Taku glacier. Hank asks Mike, who grew up in Alaska, to investigate, noting that he will plant a story in the local papers that Mike is recuperating from a nervous breakdown. Mike reluctantly agrees, and Hank introduces him to Vee Langley, an attractive undercover agent who will accompany him, posing as his nurse. Mike and Vee travel to his family's hunting lodge near the Taku glacier, where they are greeted by the new caretaker, Hans. Mike is restless in the wilderness, despite his budding romance with Vee, and he doubts the saucer exists until they see it fly over the cabin one night. The next morning, while Vee is taking a walk, Hans stalks her with a rifle, but when he sees a bear approaching her, he leaves. Vee escapes the bear and returns to the lodge, and when Hans tells her that Mike has taken the skiff and gone to Juneau, she sets out after him. In Juneau, Mike goes from bar to bar looking for his old friends. Vee finally finds the drunken Mike in the company of a woman named Nanette, but when he refuses to return to the lodge with her, she walks out. Mike then encounters his old friend Matt Mitchell, who drunkenly displays a wad of money and explains, to the interest of the men at the next table, that he has rented his fishing boat to a group of foreigners. After Mike leaves the bar, one of the men, Alex Muller, takes Matt to the headquarters of Colonel Marikoff and knocks him unconscious. Marikoff is visited by Turner, a mechanic who works for the saucer's inventor, Dr. Carl Lawton, who offers to sell the flying disc to the Communists for one million dollars. In the next room, Matt regains consciousness, and after hearing Turner tell Marikoff that the saucer is hidden at Twin Lakes, he escapes through the window. The next morning, Matt rows out to find Mike, but they are attacked by Russian agents, who shoot Matt and beat up Mike. Before he dies, Matt tells Mike where to find the saucer. Mike rents an airplane and flies to Twin Lakes, stopping at an isolated cabin, where he finds the saucer in the basement. He flies back toward Juneau to call Hank, but when he stops at the lodge to refuel, he sees Hans talking with the Russian agents. Meanwhile, Vee receives a telegram from Hank instructing her to hide Lawton, and she takes him to the lodge, where they are captured by the Russians and Turner, who have already imprisoned Mike. The Russians lead their prisoners through a secret tunnel under the glacier, but when Mike attempts to use Alex as a hostage, the Russians open fire, which causes an avalanche. The Russians are killed, and Mike, Vee and Lawton escape from the tunnel in time to see Turner fly off in the saucer, which explodes in mid-air, due to a bomb that Lawton planted on board. Their mission accomplished, Mike and Vee kiss.
Director
Mikel Conrad
Cast
Mikel Conrad
Pat Garrison
Hantz Von Teuffen
Lester Sharpe
Russell Hicks
Frank Darien
Denver Pyle
Roy Engel
Garry Owen
Virginia Hewitt
George Baxter
Phillip Morris
Robert Boon
Erl Lyon
Crew
Darrell Calker
Mikel Conrad
Mikel Conrad
Robert Crandall
Charles D. Hall
F. W. Moran
Harry Ross
Phillip Tannura
Murray Waite
Morris M. Wein
Lincoln A. Widder
Geraldine Wright
Mack Wright
Howard Irving Young
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The following written prologue appears before the onscreen credits: "We gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of those in authority who made the release of the 'Flying Saucer' film possible at this time." Portions of the film were shot on location in Alaska. The term "flying saucer" was coined in June 1947, when a businessman named Kenneth Arnold, who was piloting a small plane over the Cascade Mountains in Washington, claimed to see a group of shiny disks flying through the air at more than twelve hundred miles per hour. A wave of similar sightings followed. The Flying Saucer was the first feature film to deal with this phenomenon.
According to a September 21, 1949 article in Los Angeles Examiner, Mikel Conrad claimed to have obtained footage of actual flying saucers while shooting Arctic Manhunt in Alaska in the winter of 1947. The article added that the nine hundred feet of film, which the government had been holding in a sealed vault in Los Angeles, would be released to Conrad for use in The Flying Saucer. Documentary footage did not appear in the viewed print, however.
