1957
| Director | William Asher |
| Producer | Helen Ainsworth |
| Production Company | Romson, Columbia Pictures |
| Release Date | July 1957 |
| Cast | Gene Barry (Jonathan Clark), Valerie French (Evelyn Wingate), George Voskovec (Prof. Klaus Bechner), Azemat Janti (Ivan Godofsky), Arnold Moss (The Alien), Stefan Schnabel (Soviet General), Paul Frees (Ward Mason), Maria McClay (Su Tan), Ralph Clanton (Mr. Ingram), Friedrich von Ledebur (Dr. Karl Neuhaus), Paul Birch (Admiral), Theodore Marcuse (Col. Gregor), Emil Sitka (Newsboy) |
Englishwoman Evelyn Wingate (Valerie French), American reporter Jonathan Clark (Gene Barry), Chinese peasant Su Tan (Maria McClay), German physicist Klaus Bechner (George Voskovec), and Soviet soldier Ivan Godofsky (Azemat Janti) are randomly transported to an alien spacecraft in Earth orbit. There, they are met by a humanoid referring to himself only as “The Alien” (Arnold Moss), who explains that he is the representative of a world orbiting a sun about to go nova. Needing a new world to inhabit within the next 35 days, yet prohibited by their moral code from killing intelligent life, The Alien provides each of the five with sets of three capsules in a clear, round, hand-held case. Each capsule is capable of destroying all human life within a 3,000-mile diameter, with the expectation that humanity will use all the capsules, obliterating itself, leaving the Earth free for alien colonization.
This 1957 black-and-white American science fiction film is based on the screenwriter John Mantley’s own 1956 original science fiction novel of the same name. The file recycles some flying saucer stock footage from the previous year’s “Earth vs. The Flying Saucers”.
Maria’s role as Su Tan, a Chinese peasant who loses her husband in the ongoing civil war, is one of her most extensive among her feature film credits. Despite not having any lines to speak she is present for the entire opening and setup of the movie and has a complete arc for her character.
Scenes Featuring Maria
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