Reviews

This is the first Turkish film to deal with space flight, UFOs or aliens. In addition it is – maybe – Turkey's first science fiction film. It is a toss-up between this film and Görünmeyen adam Istanbul'da (1955), or The Invisible Man in Istanbul.

Ucan daireler Istanbul'da/Flying Saucers over Istanbul starts with a long opening title sequence consisting of a scantily clad young belly dancer. The audience consists of a group of middle- aged or old women, as well as two men: a journalist called Sapsal and a photographer called Kasar , played by Zafer Önen and Orhan Ercin, respectively. The older women thank the two reporters for coming, explaining that the belly dancer was a ruse to lure men to the club, as the rich, unmarried women there seek husbands.

At the newspaper office, the journalists are assigned to write about the flying saucers that are the talk of the town. So, the two break into an observatory, hit the wrong buttons on the telescope, and accidentally call a UFO into landing. Outside the window they see a flying saucer descend from the heavens.

The silvery UFO opens, and out steps a boxy robot, followed by alien women clad in leotards, mantles, broad, shiny collars and glittery head-pieces. And holding ray guns, naturally. The two men are captured, and the alien queen (Türkan Samil) explains that they are out looking for new men for their home planet. But what gets the two journalists going is the aliens' youth elixir. With money signs flashing before their eyes, they devise a plan to seemingly help the aliens to find new men, if they get one bottle of the elixir as payment, but in fact plan on selling it to the old, rich women at the club.

Soon everyone starts fighting over the youth elixir, the men are kidnapped once more by the aliens and threatened with death, but are helped by one of the alien women (Özcan Tekgül). They return to the club where Marilyn Monroe (Mirella Monro) is now dancing, and continue their efforts to sell the elixir. Finally chaos breaks out, and the two journalists happily join the aliens as they take off home again in their UFO.

Analysing the plot of Flying Saucers over Istanbul is futile, since the film is gag- rather than plot-driven. And in forsaking plot for gag one should make sure that the gags are funny. Neither of the main actors have any talent for physical comedy, although they do try falling over and stumbling, and the verbal gags are just awful. Orhan Ercin is trying to do a Jerry Lewis schtick, but hasn't the timing, the wit, nor the facial motor skills for it.

The direction by Ercin himself is pedestrian at best, amateurish at worst. The special effects, sets and props are all Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) standard. The UFO looks like a cake mould made out of all the tin foil in Istanbul, and the robot looks like something a seven-year-old would have cobbled together from cereal boxes and a couple of light bulbs. The spaceship interior is clearly plywood, and the torture chamber the two journalists are put in look like shower drapes. I'll be darned if the telescope isn't made out of papier mache. The ray guns are way too sophisticated for this production and are probably over-the-counter children's toys.

None of the actors are particularly good, but then again, I don't know what it would take to make anyone look good with this script. Respected character actor Zafer Önen, does come off this film without any permanent damage to his career, though.

One can perhaps not expect too much from the alien women, as none of them seem to have been primarily actors, but dancers. The real star name of the movie, however, is Özcan Tekgül, playing the rebellious alien who helps the two journalists. Reportedly one of the most daring belly dancers of the fifties and sixties, she was probably Turkey's most notorious vamp in the late fifties and sixties. In 1980 she caused an uproar when she was to be awarded a medal of honour by the Turkish government, for her 25 years in Turkish cinema. This led to a heated debate in the parliament where one spokesman challenged the prime minister with these words: "Should this queen of disgrace and scandal put the medal given to her by your government onto her belly or do you have any idea as to what proper place she should wear it?" At least one minister resigned over the affair.

This film is made for Turkish men, and is intended to make fun of women's liberation, like many sci-fi films of the fifties. It may bring some joy to sci-fi completists, lovers of bad science fiction, belly dancing fanatics and people who like really, really dumb comedy.

Tômei ningen or The Invisible Man, released just prior to New Year's Eve 1954, was Toho's second science fiction film and Japan's second invisible man film, all in all the country's third (known and confirmed) sci-fi movie. Filmed in a rush to capitalise on Gojira's success, the movie has its moments, and Eiji Tsuburaya's special effects are fairly solid. A complete departure from H.G. Wells, Tomei ningen serves up touching some touching drama and a generic film noir mob plot, and mixes in some song and dance numbers.

Japan's first sci-fi movie was Tômei ningen arawaru (1949), or The Invisible Man Appears. Made for movie studio Daiei, the invisibility effects of that film were made by Eiji Tsuburaya, before his move to Toho. In 1954 Toho apparently wanted to do their own slant on the theme, and subsequently had Tsuburaya re-work his magic.

The film opens with a car hitting something invisible in the middle of Tokyo. While examining the accident, an invisible man (Haruo Nakajima) suddenly becomes visible, dead under the car. In his pocket police find a letter, explaining that this invisible man decided to commit suicide,but that there is one other man like him, invisible, living in the city.

Taking advantage of the situation, a gang of criminals calling themselves "the invisible men" start looting race-tracks and banks wearing bandages over their heads. The criminals are organised by a mob boss called Yajima (Minoru Takada), who is also the owner of the nightclub Black Ships, from where he runs an illegal drug business. His right-hand man Ken (Kenjirô Uemura) tries to intimidate the club's singer Michiyo (Miki Sanjô) into become a drug mule, but she refuses, leading him to assault her in her dressing-room, only to be interrupted by the clown Takamitsu Nanjô (Seizaburô Kawazu).

Nanjô works as a clown in full make-up, carrying advertisement signs for the club around town, and happens to be a neighbour of Michiyo's. This kind and unassuming clown is also, surprise, surprise, the invisible man. His best friend in the world is a little blind girl called Mariko (Keiko Kondo). She lives alone with her grandfather (Kamatari Fujiwara), who works as a nightwatchman, and becomes a victim of the criminal gang.

Newspaper reporter Komatsu (Yoshio Tsuchiya) finds out the ugly truth behind the governments program to create invisible super- soldiers during WWII. He helps the invisible to take on the criminal gang, to clear the invisible man's name, and avenge Mariko.

Eiji Tsuburaya basically employs the same techniques as Universal's genius John P. Fulton had in The Invisible Man 22 years earlier.The effects are few and far between, no doubt because of the tight shooting schedule.

On the whole, it's a slow-moving and rather dull affair. None of the characters are ever fleshed out, and remain cardboard cut-outs. There's the good guys and the bad guys, the little orphaned girl and the damsel in distress. The bad guys walk around shouting and sneering, the good guys are kind-hearted and noble. The acting is decent enough throughout the film. The stand-out is Yoshio Tsuchiya, playing the reporter, who may be familiar to sci-fi fans through his appearance in numerous Toho tokusatsu films.

Thematically the film partly deals with the age-old topic of the outsider. Like H.C. Andersen's ugly duckling or Cinderella of the folktale, Nanjô the clown is a person whom people walk past every day without taking notice of, but when the stakes are high the people around him see him as the hero he is inside. On the other hand, it is a tale of someone forced to hide their true identity for fear of persecution of being different, a theme popular in sci-fi from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein onward, and popularised in the later half of the 20th century with rising awareness of gay rights.

However, the story may also reflect on the feelings of many Japanese war veterans after WWII. After surrendering in 1945, Japan was occupied by allied forces, mainly American, who forced upon them the doctrine that Japan had fought an aggression war, and enforced a strict censorship in the arts and media. Many war veterans felt that their sacrifices for Japan were demonised, that they weren't compensated for their loss and injuries and were on the whole forgotten and discarded by the Japanese government – very much like invisible men who had to put on masks to cope with daily life.

But be the interpretations what they may, these themes aren't explored in earnest in the film, instead the script focuses on the personal drama and the generic crime plot. The film is rather violent for its day, and it doesn't go easy on its women. See for example a scene of a club dancer held prisoner by the criminal gang, suspended in rope bondage in a skimpy outfit – and brutally whipped.

As a special effects film it is so-so. As a mob drama it's a bit too generic to be appealing, and the characters are too flat for a good personal drama. Like its Japanese predecessor, the film has a hard time finding its genre, jumping from one to the other, sort of trying on different hats familiar from Hollywood to see which of them fits best.