UFO: TOP SECRET (1978) Blathering Pseudo Documentary Flying Saucer Pop Culture Ephemera, and Masterwork of the Absurd

 

"UFO: TOP SECRET" 1978, 80 minutes. Regarded as one of the best movies ever to have on while doing other things, like reading blogs.

Like bad movies? At one point I aspired to be a scholar of bad movies, though not the kind you're thinking of. I admire and enjoy the Ed Wood films, the EEAGHHs, groovy "Reefer Madness", rate TROG very highly as a childhood rite of passage experience, have MANOS: HANDS OF FATE on a rare Something Weird VHS, and shelves of those "250 Crappy Looking Movies for $9.99" public domain DVD collections in drink coaster boxes. 

All starter material. Call back when you've at least seen OPEN SEASON (1974) with Peter Fonda. A film whose badness approaches a study in applied trash which transcends its grindhouse gutter. My favorite bad movie of them all is WEB OF THE SPIDER, a 1970 Italian made supernatural soap opera that even Klaus Kinski could not save. Studying its layering of missed opportunities and baffling non-sequitors could be a decent subject for a PHd.

Another wretched favorite, known better as The Curse of Demon Mountain.

The UFO movie we're on about here is an entirely different strain of awful, blending several genres and positing itself as something important. We are not here to laugh at it (well ...) but to marvel that it manages to exist at all. I have an acquired taste for "paranormal interest programming", but again not the kind you'd think. I have no patience for the Skinwalkers, almost feel Ancient Aliens should be banned (regulated?), am pretty sure the US Navy has better things to do with their time but love the balloon stories, and regard the alien abduction phenomenon as a massive cultural fraud. People know better and they still do it.

"The Face On Mars" revealed. What a disappointment.

As long as you regard such things as an alternative form of reality entertainment some of the mayhem can be engrossing when in the right frame of mind. But we've been there and back on Roswell, Rendlesham Forest, Area 51, the promising sounding RB-47 encounter, the always creep-inducing Tehran F-4 incident. Even silly Gulf Breeze with that clown in the cowboy hat, Travis Walton in his more subdued Village People hard hat. Ridiculous Erich Von Daniken with that pathetic Ancient Aliens theme park, the jerk. Seriously.

"Twin and Earth" 2017 acrylics and pastel on wood, 8 x 22 inches.

Because people actually believe some of it, for which I have compassion. Whatever event one cares to suggest as evidence UFOs are alien spacecraft that have come here to take our cattle etc, has likely already been considered by my own eyes and found wanting. Sorry, but no. At present I regard myself as a reformed open-minded agnostic who very much wanted to believe in such items as a younger man. But as an older one have grown to accept that the verifiable data proving alien visitation just isn't there, anywhere.

That would have been cool - US Army Avrocar scout vehicles, from a 1950s Popular Mechanics article.

Then there are issues like how it is far too distant to the average nearest "habitable region" exoplanet for their routine exploration of our galactic nook; There are too many other star systems to make ours significant to external explorers without signals from us (which only travel at the speed of light) they would need luck in finding; The expense of mounting a mission to our little Sol would not be cost-efficient for grandly superior alien species crossing 20+ light years (at sublight speeds, mind you) looking for things to explore; And there is probably little here for them to do except enjoy our food, women and cultural forms like music or visual arts. Then leave us to our wars, our germs, and our History Channel programming.

"Pickup Truck Found Floating In Space" 1991 acrylics on canvas, 20 x 48 inches.

But gosh, do I love wallowing in the stupidly relaxing warm bath of a half baked, inept, yet sincerely made flying saucer documentary. The older, more outdated its information, and difficult to clearly understand what its point is the better. Throw in music or video content worth retaining or adding to one's own media projects and I am there.

Filmmaker Wheeler Dixon did all that and so much more in 1978, riding the coattails of both CLOSE ENCOUNTERS and STAR WARS simultaneously to secure financing for the film humanity was destined to see, and he was destined to make. UFO: TOP SECRET. I'm so impressed I uploaded a public domain copy to my Space Trucks YouTube channel, which is there for certain intellectual content I don't want potentially compromising my professional channel. Translation - Stuff not worth getting banned over, but still fascinating enough to write blogs about and not wish rely on someone else's upload for readers to follow along at home.

Click here to open the video in a new window, though quite frankly it looks great on a small screen i.e. phone and I actually keep a copy on mine with other entertainments for moments when something completely ridiculous is called for.

Below is a paste in of my brief review of the film from IMDb.com, which to this day has generated one interaction - A thumbs down, likely from the same flying saucer enthusiast who down voted all of my UFO reviews one day. Yeah I noticed.

Alien Bar Patron, 2016 acrylics and pastel on wood shingle, 6 x 20 inches.

Come For The UFOs, Stay For The Music?

UFO: TOP SECRET (1978)

28 February 2022

Brainless stream of consciousness "UFO documentary" seemingly written by a flying saucer enthusiast completely lit on potent St. John's Wort who had just tripped out to a book on astronomy. The film is literally 80 minutes of an enthusiastic narrator babbling utterly jumbled up saucer speak or future shock pep talk nonstop while endearingly low-tech space visuals play out. 

Lots of abstract space art scenes, shoebox diorama model shots, and NASA clips hurtle by while the narrator continues on and on. Most of the visuals have nothing to do with the narration, amounting to a bizarre form of retro-futurist science fiction without any narrative. In fact the movie might have worked better without the narration, which serves to only devolve the effort into space kitsch.

I have a taste for such things, yet can remember no individual moment, claim, fact or insight in the whole proceedings that stood out as memorable. My conclusion at the time was that it is a perfect movie to have on while you are doing other things. Any given stretch of it is as good as any other so you can drift in and out while doing the dishes, working on your taxes, playing Quake II, avoiding social media, or just binge-dowloading brain dead crap like it off Archive.Org. 

Yes the documentary sucks, and whatever color the film had is sadly washed out on mighty Interglobal Video's surviving VHS print. But in my opinion is still more enjoyable to have on than the news, Dr. Pol, Storage Wars, Ancient Aliens twaddle, or Snoop Dog & Martha Stewart making sandwiches. What *do* people watch these days, and why??

By choosing this you will learn nothing about UFOs, government conspiracies, secretive alien activities or insight into life in the future. Viewers with a taste for cinematic kitsch will at least enjoy the musical score which concludes with a soaring Beatles-like instrumental that made me wonder if it's that band Klaatu (nope: Jim Cookman is the credited unknown composer, wish we could hear more). 

I'll concede that the music alone is not strong enough to carry the film, but is odd enough to make sections of the film more enjoyable for those who despise contemporary commercialized pop entertainment forms. A good application for the film might be as a visual projection during a DJ party. Just turn the sound off, jam the music mix and let the shifting images roll by. Even people who aren't stoned will dig that.

The movie one more time - try playing all three embeds at once for a real head trip. Or just start one and leave it on as background chatter, while painting. It's miraculous.