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In 1957, after successfully supplying fledgling studio American-International Pictures with successful drive-in fodder like The Day the World Ended and It Conquered the World, Roger Corman was hired by Allied Artists to produce and direct a couplet of low-budget sci-fi features. The result, Attack of the Crab Monsters and Not of This Earth, is a pair of the most fondly-remembered and highly regarded cheesy films of the decade. Once a staple of TV "Creature Features", the films have fallen into some sort of ownership hell and have never gotten a decent VHS or DVD release. Attack of the Crab Monsters made it to DVD in 2002 in one of the worst transfers ever to be foisted on the public, but it's long out of print. Not of this Earth (not to be confused with the 1980s remake with porn star Traci Lords) hasn't even managed that sort of respect, and Your Balcony Webmaster has spent many years trying to find a decent copy of the film, one of Corman's best.

The wait is over! Not of this Earth, under the title Gesandter des Grauens (roughly "Messenger of Horror"), has been released on DVD in Germany (Region 2) and it's swell. Paul Birch has come from outer space to save his dying race; atomic war has poisoned their blood, and some fresh, homogenized Earth plasma is needed to replenish their nuclear-polluted supply. Balcony fave Beverly Garland is the nurse who's trying to figure out why all these bloodless corpses keep popping up. Balcony fave and perennial Corman featured player Dick Miller is a door-to-door salesman who blunders into the atomic vampire in a comic scene that turned out to be the film's best-remembered sequence. Corman: "This became a very funny scene… audiences responded so enthusiastically to this combination of suspense and comedy that I continued to experiment, particularly in horror films."

The DVD of Not of this Earth (Entertainmarket, 11.95 Euros) is full-screen and appears matted that way; it's a good print and transfer, although the opening scene (with Gail Ganley of Blood of Dracula as the seminal victim) is lightened so that it appears she's being attacked at noon, rather silly when there's an owl hooting over her (the film's trailer shows the scene day-for-night as intended). The film is in English or (dubbed) German, sans subtitles. The disc includes a strange 20-min. truncated version of Corman's The Terror and several trailers in German.

The FNF gang enjoyed the film (Peter: "It was better than I expected. When I saw the credit 'Produced & Directed by Roger Corman', I thought, 'Uh-oh!'") Also on the program; our Balconeer-recommended cartoon, Russian Rhapsody, with Hitler flying a bombing mission to Moscow in a plane full of gremlins. More weird funny than ha-ha funny, but delightfully animated and colorful. Joe McDoakes starred in "So You Want to be an Actor", which got the usual so-so audience McDoakes response, and the Copperhead was seemingly crushed to death by Dr. Satan's Man of Steel in the fifth episode of Mysterious Doctor Satan. I served vegetable soup to my guests. Next week: Karloff! Karloff! KARLOFF!