''The Terrornauts'' is a 1967 British

science fiction film Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interste ...

produced by

Amicus Productions Amicus Productions was a British film production company, based at Shepperton Studios, England, active between 1962 and 1977. It was founded by American producers and screenwriters Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg. Films Prior to establish ...

. The film is based on '' The Wailing Asteroid'' by

Murray Leinster Murray Leinster (June 16, 1896 – June 8, 1975) was a pen name of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an American writer of genre fiction, particularly of science fiction. He wrote and published more than 1,500 short stories and articles, 14 movie ...

, adapted for screen by John Brunner.

Synopsis

Project Star Talk is based at a UK

radio telescope A radio telescope is a specialized antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the radio frequency ...

site; its mission is to listen for radio signals from other intelligences. Dr Joe Burke (Simon Oates) is the head of the project, assisted by his small team, consisting of electronics expert Ben Keller (Stanley Meadows) and office manager Sandy Lund (Zena Marshall). Due to the lack of success reported by the site manager, Dr Henry Shore (Max Adrian), Project Star Talk is given ninety days to report positive results. While waiting for a response, Dr Burke tells of his father's discovery at an archaeological dig in France of a cube that gave him strange dreams as a boy, inspiring him to become an astronomer. During this period, an accountant, Mr Yellowlees (Charles Hawtrey) is sent to look over the project's accounts. As luck would have it, a repeating signal is received by the project, but the signal is only coming from a small asteroid with no atmosphere in the outer solar system. Despite this, Dr. Burke spends the balance of his grant to equip the telescope with a powerful transmitter to contact the source of the signals. The night of the transmission, Mr Yellowlees and Mrs Jones (Patricia Hayes), who runs the tea trolley, stay to witness this historic event. The signal is sent and reaches the asteroid. The asteroid has on it a huge installation that receives the radio signal and answers it with a spaceship sent riding down the radio beam to the point of transmission. When the spacecraft arrives at Project Star Talk, it picks up the transmitter shed and carries it, the project staff and the two witnesses to the alien installation. The telescope staff's leader believes, despite eyewitnesses, that the transmitter shed exploded, killing the Star Talk team. Upon arrival at the asteroid, the team is greeted by a robot that takes them through a series of tests. After each test, they are provided with rewards such as food for the intelligence test, a weapon for the motivation test, and a "Knowledge Cube" for the knowledge test. After a tour of a control room, they are then brought to a chamber with a small platform and a figure in a chair, who simply happens to be the long-dead caretaker of the base. As they head back to the control room, Ben bumps Sandy onto the platform and she is "transposed" in a puff of smoke to a distant planet peopled by savages who try to kill her. Dr Burke then follows Sandy to the planet armed with the gun, effects a rescue before she can be killed, and discovers the secret of the Knowledge Cubes in the process. Dr Burke plugs into the cube, and the horrible secret is revealed: the planet of savages is the home of the survivors of an interstellar war that is fast approaching Earth, and the Star Talk team are the only ones who can use the advanced weapons of the installation to stop an invading enemy fleet from destroying planet Earth. The team searches frantically through the huge library of cubes for the instructions to use the weapons of the fortress, but are unsuccessful. As the enemy fleet comes into range, the robot delivers the cubes needed just in time. The battle is joined, but the Star Talk team has a hard time hitting the aliens with missiles, so, with the cubes' instruction, the fortress' engines are started and they rise off the asteroid to intercept the aliens who, nearing defeat, then crash into the fortress. Dr Burke sets the "transposer plates" for Earth and the Star Talk team, Mr Yellowlees, and Mrs Jones are transposed to the very archaeological dig in France where Dr Burke's father found the cube so long ago. While they congratulate themselves on their luck, a gendarme (André Maranne) arrests them for trespassing.

Cast

* Simon Oates ... Dr. Joe Burke *

Zena Marshall Zena Moyra Marshall (1 January 1926 – 10 July 2009) was a British actress of film and television, who was born in Kenya. Early years Marshall was of English, Irish and (on her mother's side) French descent. Though born in Kenya, after her ...

... Sandy Lund * Charles Hawtrey ... Joshua Yellowlees *

Patricia Hayes Patricia Lawlor Hayes (22 December 1909 – 19 September 1998) was an English character actress. Early life Patricia Hayes OBE was born in Streatham,Dennis Barker, "Hayes, Patricia Lawlor (1909–1998)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biogra ...

... Mrs. Jones *

Stanley Meadows Stanley Meadows (born 14 July 1931 in Stepney, London, England) is a British film and television actor. He graduated from RADA in 1955. Meadows made frequent appearances in British films and became something of a stalwart of British television se ...

... Ben Keller *

Max Adrian Max Adrian (born Guy Thornton Bor; 1 November 1903 – 19 January 1973) was an Irish stage, film and television actor and singer. He was a founding member of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. In addition to his succ ...

... Dr. Henry Shore * Frank Barry ... Burke as a child * Richard Carpenter ... Danny * Leonard Cracknell ... Nick *

André Maranne André Maranne (14 May 1926 – 12 April 2021) was a French-English actor best known for playing roles in English-language films beginning in the mid-1950s. Life and career Born André Gaston Maillol in Toulouse, France, Maranne's best known ...

... Gendarme * Frank Forsyth ... Uncle *

Robert Jewell Robert Jewell (20 January 1920 – 10 May 1998) was an Australian actor who mostly worked as a Dalek or other robot operator on ''Doctor Who'' in the late 1960s, also playing a cameo as Bing Crosby in the serial '' The Daleks' Master Plan' ...

... Robot Operator

Critical reception

''The Terrornauts'' was distributed as a

double feature The double feature is a motion picture industry phenomenon in which theatres would exhibit two films for the price of one, supplanting an earlier format in which one feature film and various short subject reels would be shown. Opera use Opera ho ...

with ''

They Came from Beyond Space ''They Came from Beyond Space'' is a 1967 British Eastman Color science fiction film produced by Max J. Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky, and directed by Freddie Francis. The screenplay was written by Subotsky, based on the 1941 novel '' The God ...

''. This double bill has been called "the two worst films the company ever produced".Ed. Allan Bryce, ''Amicus: The Studio That Dripped Blood'', Stray Cat Publishing, 2000 p 47

References

External links

* *http://www.planet-9.de/luke/screenshots/terrornauts * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Terrornauts, The 1960s science fiction films 1967 films Films directed by Montgomery Tully Films based on American novels Films scored by Elisabeth Lutyens British science fiction films Fiction about asteroids Amicus Productions films Embassy Pictures films Films based on science fiction novels 1960s English-language films 1960s British films