The Terrornauts

THE TERRORNAUTS-1967-For several years a trio of scientists have been working on a government funded project to communicate with life in outer space. Their project director Dr. Shore (Max Adrian) wants to shut them down. They finally hear an unusual transmission but the group head Dr. Burke (Simon Oates) heard them before when he was a child and believes them to be an SOS. They try to make contact with the aliens and their whole building is whisked away with Burke, his two assistants Sandy (Zena Marshall) and Ben (Stanley Meadows) and comical characters Mrs. Jones (Patricia Hayes), a coffee vendor and Mr. Yellowtees, an accountant (Charles Hawtrey from CARRY ON movies) in tow. They wind up on a spaceship which is actually a space fortress build by long dead aliens to protect Earth from enemies to are heading to Earth. A robot meets them and they figure out through strange cubes and a headset that looks like a bathing cap with wires on it how to stop the invaders. At one point Burke and Sandy are transported to a planet of green people where Sandy is almost made into a sacrifice! The beginning is pretty talky but once the story gets on the spaceship it gets funnier. There's lots of cheap effects including "PLAN 9" like UFOs  but that makes it all the more enjoyable. 

This Amicus production is based on an novel by American Sci-Fi writer Murray Leinster and the screenplay is by English S.F. writer John Brunner.  Irish born director Montgomery Tully later made BATTLE BENEATH THE EARTH.



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