Hello!

It’s a Flying Saucer Scare, from 1957.

Circulated by both David J. Schow and Joe Dante are these vintage newspaper photos that tell a story every Sci-fi fan will appreciate. They say these surfaced years ago, so they must have slipped unseen past these eyes.

According to the message I received, the The L.A. Times ran these photos in January 1957, taken ‘in the mud and dark of night in an area off Lakeridge Road.’  Hearing some talk about a flying saucer landing in the neighborhood, none other than Gloria Swanson and some friends (one of them in a very posh-looking coat) trundled through the mud and took these photos. We like seeing that the practical Ms. Swanson was smart enough to wear her mud shoes; she took off her dark glasses for the photo. As it looks like a dark and rainy day, were the glasses an attempt to maintain anonymity?

‘Just off Lakeridge Road’ places the saucer not in Bronson Caverns, but in Cahuenga pass up behind Lake Hollywood and the Ford Theater, in some clearing between Mulholland Drive and the Hollywood Sign. Monster movie fans will recognize the saucer right away, as being from Tom Graeff’s tiny, over-achieving production  Teenagers from Outer Space.

I think even Roger Corman would make sure to clean up after himself, as this is a rather large piece of junk to leave behind for somebody else cut up and haul away. The Teenagers movie is a hard-luck Hollywood tale … apparently filmed in late 1956, it didn’t surface until 1959. It’s not likely that Tom Graeff saw any profit participation in its national release from Warner Brothers.

(Both images enlarge.)  I saw Teenagers from Outer Space new in 1959 at age seven. I thought it was terrific, and really felt sorry for the teenage spaceman. But even I wasn’t fooled by those big lobster shadows.

And some scheduling news gives us the opportunity to say something nice about Turner Classic Movies. The blurb is short and sweet — the cable station is presently devoting a ton of air time to  Hollywood Pre-Code Movies,  dozens of them. It’s happening now and continues through March.

They’re listing at least ten we haven’t seen, so the DVR will get a workout. TCM has grown more corporate, but it still provides a basic access to classic films, and they still make it their business to air rare and unusual items.

TCM has its own list, but the one at this pre-code.com link is convenient. It comes in an article that also plugs a new TCM book by Kim Luperi and Danny Reid.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson