Aliens & Smooching

Invasion of the Saucer Men was released in 1957 and occupied an era where teen dudes dressed in suits and ties, referred to chicks as dames, and counted it as a plus if they made it to first base (smooching with no tongue application) with said skirts. Everybody in those days were black and white as color wouldn’t be invented until the ‘60s. And yet the teens that happened upon the invading saucer men kept insisting to the cops that these “little monsters” were green. Looked grey to me.

So yeah, aliens land their saucer on Earth at night and proceed to lurk around in the woods that serve as camouflage for first-basing teens. But these aren’t your ordinary extraterrestrials; they’re only a few feet tall,  featuring inside out scrotum heads and probably stink like Uranus. (I never get tired of that joke device.) But their best feature is gnarly hands that have dripping needles protruding out of the fingertips. And that dripping liquid is…ALCOHOL! The good stuff, too, not the Two-Buck-Chuck stuff you/I get at the mini-mart.

First customer/victim is none other than the Riddler (aka, Frank Gorshin) who plays one of two drifters, and packs a bottle of the good stuff wherever he goes. And when he ends up drunkenly encountering the aliens and they inject him with even more booze, well hey – let’s get this party started! Unfortunately, it was a clear case of over-serving as he died from acute alcohol poisoning.

Meanwhile, the military shows up and surrounds the flying saucer, and with a bullhorn, demanding they present themselves: “Come out! Can you hear me, spaceship?” (I don’t know why, but that cracked me up.) No response, so they shoot it with explosive-grade ammo. Nothing. Then they try using an acetylene torch – and end up causing the ship to explode. Shrugging their shoulders, the military gets in their jeeps and drive back to the base.

But it’s the horny teens who save the day. Discovering that the aliens melt and explode when exposed to light, they rally all the cars at the make-out zone in the woods to surround the creatures and simultaneously turn on their headlights. Ka-BOOM! Invasion denied. Then they go back to power smooching. It’s as if getting to first – and possibly second base — was more important to them than halting an alien invasion. And they’re right.