The Terrornauts

The Terrornauts - 1967 | 75 mins | Sci-Fi | Colour

The Production Team

Director: Montgomery Tully.
Producer: Max Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky.
Script: John Brunner. (based on the Murray Leinster novel The Wailing Asteroid)
Cinematography: Geoffrey Faithfull.
Film Editing: Peter Musgrave.
Production Design: Bill Constable.
Makeup Department: Dorrie Hamilton and Olive Mills.
Sound Department: Laurie Clarkson and Stanley Smith.
Original Music: Elisabeth Lutyens.

The Cast

Simon Oates - Dr. Joe Burke
Zena Marshall - Sandy Lund
Charles Hawtrey - Joshua Yellowlees
Patricia Hayes - =Mrs. Jones
Stanley Meadows - Ben Keller
Max Adrian - Dr. Henry Shore

Plot Synopsis

Sci-fi drama based on Will F. Jenkins novel The Wailing Asteroid, which Jenkins published under his pseudonym of Murray Leinster. It's a mediocre sci-fi tale symbolising the danger to planet Earth if we're not vigilant, but with second-rate special effects and weak direction it doesn't add up to anything more than a kitsch science-fiction adventure with Charles Hawtrey and Patricia Hayes on hand to provide comic relief. Screened in the US in 1967, the film only received a release in Britain in cut form in 1971.

Dr. Joe Burke (Simon Oates) is the British astronomer behind Operation Star Talk, a sponsored project listening out for, and trying to contact intelligent alien civilisations. After years without anything, they begin to receive an oscillating electric signal, one Burke heard as a child, and he gets more than he bargained for when an alien spacecraft transports the observatory and its inhabitants to another world. They are exposed to a savage race that was formerly a civilized colony, and given a warning about the future.