The Gamma People (1956) Online

Now here's a real oddity. Made before the British scifi/horror boom of the late 50s, this eccentric film mixes gruesome scientific experiments with farcical comedy, set in a fictitious Iron Curtain state. And one of the stars, playing a straight role, is Leslie Phillips. So is it any good? Well the clash of styles is somewhat disconcerting, but the film is attractively photographed and the action and horror scenes well staged. Some talented personnel worked on it ; the likes of Ted Moore and John Box, plus John Gilling who went on to do some good Hammer horrors. "The Gamma People" isn't quite in that league but still merits a viewing.

The Gamma People is a classic mix of post WWII aimlessness sprinkled nicely with a generous dose of Hitlerian medical experimentation by a quasi dictator named Boronski. Unnoticed by the outside world save a chance happenstance of an uncoupled railroad passenger car with 2 reporters, American and British sliding down a side rail and ending up engine-less in the rail yard of the Dutchy of Gudavia, the whole town is in an uproar about the arrival of uninvited foreign guests.

A postage stamp country if there ever was one, in fact, it's smaller than a postage stamp. With a pompous Hoenzollern-like police chief, a quaint hotel, and other assorted hovels leered at by a castle on the hill (that's where Boronski lives), Gudavia holds a hideous secret. The youth of the town are being zapped by Boronski with a huge gamma-ray projector causing two types of effects, geniuses like Hugo, a Teutonic dictatorial little snit and Hedda, a musical genius, able to whip out complex Beethoven or Bach at the drop of a piece of strudel, and morons, goon-like guys who run around with their arms at their sides and mouths wide open, catching flies, and moaning their compliance to the will of Boronski and his broken pitch pipe. The Brit Lothario goes wench hunting and ends up running into one of the goonies..

The two reporters decide to visit the schloss and see what's happening in Good Old Gudavia's seat of government. The castle is ostensibly a school, with a lot of secret doors that make the coolest sound when opening and closing.. much neater than the doors on the original TOS Enterprise. There, they meet Dr. Boronski's assistant Frau Wendt, who tours the guys around the school ending up with a sculpture class where they meet Hugo and his huge goon mask, that still scares me. Here and there mysterious deaths, screams and crumpled bodies in the bottom of ravines spoil the peaceful tranquility of Gudavia,maybe you were expecting all edelweiss and shtollen ? A totally trippy festival with an awesome musical piece is used quite effectively to flesh out a who's hunting who scene in the city streets. Finally, Hedda is kidnapped and conveyed to the castle where she, Paula Wendt and the American reporter Wilson are subjected to the gamma rays, while Hugo watches, becoming more and more upset until he finally turns on the doctor pushing him off a balcony as the building begins to crumple in the intense explosion caused by the falling Boronski. Hugo and Hedda and Wilson and Paula are safe, staggering away from the castle Boronski which is now erupting like a big volcano, fade to a happy scene another festival, Hugo and Heda are happy-go-lucky young children again, free of the shackles of artificially induced genius, now just a couple of crazy kids. I think I liked them the other way.

You can read into the movie whatever you want. I look at it as a classic that fascinated me as a child, and now still does as an adult. Safe, escapist, preachy but in a nice way, and entertaining. It may be corny and cheesy but hey, I like corn and cheese.

A train-passage car carrying 2 reporters--one who resembles Prof. Quatermass a bit too much--accidently winds up breaking off from the rest of the train leaving the 2 men stranded in a strange little European country named Gudavia. Once there, they find they cannot leave as those running the country have other plans. They investigate and uncover a mad scientist's conspiracy to control the people by turning them all into slaves of the state with the help of a gamma ray machine. This movie is pretty outrageous and displays some serious leaps of logic. It also features a most unlikely change of heart in one of the main characters. Still the lead actors are likable and the film is silly fun.

Gamme People, The (1956)

** (out of 4)

Extremely bizarre science-fiction film from Columbia has Paul Douglas and Leslie Phillips playing American and British journalists who accidentally wind up in a small European town, which seems to be ran by a strange scientist. After a slow start the journalist soon learn that the scientist is doing experiments with a gamma ray, which he's using to try and create geniuses. Of course, whenever the experiments fail he ends up with ghouls who will do all his evil deeds. I don't think anyone in their right mind would put THE GAMMA PEOPLE on any sort of "Best of.." list but you could possibly find it on several "WTF" lists. This is without question one of the strangest films to come from the 1950s because not only does it try to capture the horror/sci-fi genre but it also mixes in some very strange comedy as well as some political undertones. All of this stuff thrown into one screenplay just leaves the viewer scratching his head because it's impossible to really figure out what's going on or what the filmmakers were trying to do. The screenplay itself is a mess as it's all over the map and what's worse is the horrid bits of comedy that are thrown in. At times it almost seems like you're watching a spoof of a horror movie but then you get more ghoulish activity that reminds you that this is supposed to be a horror film. Speaking of ghouls, the monsters here are downright silly and it's doubtful the youngest viewers in the world would be remotely scared of them. Not for a single second are any of them scary and that silly walk they do makes one want to laugh more than anything else. With this strange blend of genres you're almost looking at a horrid movie but what saves it from the "so bad it's horrible" file are the strong performances and the fact that it's rather well-made. When I say well-made I do mean on a technical level because the direction holds the material about as well as one could hope and the cinematography is also quite nice. I'm not sure how much they had to pay Douglas to appear in this film but he does a very good job in the lead and plays it straight throughout. Phillips is also very good in his role as is Eva Bartok who plays an assistant who finally gets some courage to fight back. THE GAMMA PEOPLE has pretty much been forgotten over the years but it's certainly an interesting little experiment. It certainly doesn't work but fans of the genre will want to check it out just to see how strange it actually is.

I should say right up front that I have a lot of respect for the cast in this movie. They look good, they have professional presence (even the oafish HMS Pinafore style commander with his ostrich plume hat)(and yes, even Leslie Phillips playing a professional lightweight) and they work hard to get the movie across. And the movie looks pretty good in a lot of places - there are some nice setups, some moody lighting, even a good set piece or two.

But Paul Douglas is badly miscast in this movie, the characters act like comic relief idiots for the first half and then the movie tries to turn them into dramatics heroes in the second.....and these guys can't shoot an action scene to save their lives.

I think I can see what they are going for here - a Hammer style movie with comic elements that either relieve the gloom or give the horror aspects more of a surprise - but they just can't pull it off. This one probably got away from the screenwriters right from the beginning and they never could get it into focus (nor could they walk away from it once the resource were committed.)

This isn't a "bad" movie by any means, because the cast is too good for that. But you can give this one a miss unless you are determined to see every last 50's film with a science fiction element ever made.

This one will leave your head spinning like an Ed Wood film. It is a surreal stew of so many styles and symbolism that a reference point is reticent.

Ten years after WWII the fascist fear was forever present. Here we have science-fiction mind control based on factual events that instill a real life horror and remembrance of a not too long ago plague of pathology.

Hitler youth, enslavement encampment, and a mad scientist are at work here along with foreign journalists and feather headed throwbacks in this offbeat and mind-boggling concoction that almost but doesn't quite work.

The movie also, for some reason, throws in a bit of slapstick humor and coy dialog that got lost on its way to some other film and found its way into this sometimes sombre scenario of tortured children and monstrous and zombified men who were victims of the villains.

The result is a jigsaw made up of pieces from different puzzles. Interesting and never dull, but occasionally so twisted and ill fitting that one is left with a jaw dropping experience that will have you shaking your head, and that just might be the effect of that mind-melting gamma ray gun.

This is more of a light comedy than a science fiction thriller. It's actually a film about the different stereotypes of nationalities, beginning with the "ugly American" and the "waggish British" reporters.

The film always moves briskly, due more to clever writing, good casting, and strategic directing, than on effects and big money. This is a textbook film on how to make a film look like it's more action packed than it really is.

We know it's a spoof on the nationalities from the start, as the pair of reporters are oblivious to their train car being dislodged, by accident, and rolling into a "duchy" that resembles the European duchy we get in classics like THE INSPECTOR GENERAL, THE MOUSE THAT ROARED, and others.

The duchy citizens also play to part.

However, like most good films, this takes stereotypes and changes them into three dimensional characters, or at least two dimensional. The film makes sure it doesn't lose its light hearted approach. It has the cult look of a Rocky Horror in that regard, of taking stereotypes and making more out of them.

This is a fun film, and well done, obviously low budget. There are no dull moments, which is more than I can say for most big budget science fiction movies. Much of this is because the film creates a very good atmosphere.

Never underestimate "atmosphere" and "fundamentals". This film has both.

Although he looked like a VERY ordinary man, in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s Paul Douglas was an actor highly in demand--particularly at 20th Century-Fox. He's appeared in lots of big-budget prestige films such as "A Letter to Three Wives", "We're Not Married", "Executive Suite", "The Solid Gold Cadillac" and "Clash By Night". In addition, he was a very frequent guest star on television. In light of this, I have no idea why he would ever agree to star in a silly film like "Gamma People". When I tell you the plot, you'll understand what I mean.

Two reporters are traveling through Europe by train. One is an American (Douglas) and the other is a Brit (Leslie Phillips). However, in a hard to believe twist, the train car they are on (and no one else) become uncoupled from the train and drifts into a tiny fictional communist country. Once there, they are initially arrested but they soon let them go--for fear of an international incident. And, while they are waiting to get out of this country that seem stuck in the 19th century, the authorities give them the run of the country--but they also are careful NOT to let them learn about the 'Gamma People'. What, exactly, are Gamma People? Well, it seems these evil commies are using gamma rays in order to turn the people into obedient little pawns of the State! In a way, this combines two B-movie genres--sci-fi and Red Scare films. Can Douglas and Phillips learn the truth AND manage to make it out of this dictatorship alive?

In addition to being an odd plot, this film is odd because of its tone. Often it's played for laughs--yet other times it's deadly serious. This is often a bit jarring and I really think the comedic elements should have been excised--or at least toned down quite a bit. I think the paranoid deadly serious stuff was a lot more entertaining and in keeping with the story idea.

All in all, this is a film you watch less for the film's quality and more because of its historical value. It certainly is an odd little curio from the 1950s! Not great but enjoyable...if that makes any sense. Plus, I learned an invaluable lesson. If I am ever stuck in a repressive country, I should do what Douglas does--loudly complain and start sluggin' folks!

Two reporters, one American and one British, have their train car (not the train itself) accidentally diverted into the tiny country of Gudavia where their arrival causes excitement. Once there they eventually discover nefarious goings on performed by the evil Boronski, namely subjecting people to gamma rays to make them brainy or brain-dead. It sounds strange and it is but I found it enjoyable and watched all the way through. It starts off like Ruritanian comedy then moves into a more sinister direction. There are some creepy scenes, comic scenes and dramatic scenes. There is a classic in there somewhere but unfortunately it didn't come out.

The reporters, Paul Douglas as Mike Wilson and Leslie Phillips as Howard Meade are chalk and cheese but actually they make a plausible pairing. Philip Leaver is good as the chief of police with the elaborate headgear and Michael Caridia as the boy Hugo is quite scary. Eva Bartok is adequate but Rosalie Crutchley gives another good intense performance. Walter Rilla makes a fine villain but is not in it enough.

There are two scenes that impressed me a lot. The first is when the reporters hear a child playing the piano really well and on seeing her they are delighted with her skills but hovering over her is Hugo and it becomes apparent that the child hates being a brilliant player and when she makes a mistake Hugo berates her in a cruel fashion. What began as a charming scene develops into something a lot darker. The other scene is the carnival where amidst the revelry is drama and danger. The carnival is also wonderfully edited by Jack Slade.

All in all an odd one but worth seeing nevertheless.

It is pretty evident that this one was made pretty quickly to cash in on the drive-in horror flixs popular at the time. So many of these types of films made during the 50s had very small budgets but took themselves VERY seriously. That is why many of them turned out as high camp.

I am guessing the producers of this film must have taken a look at the budget and the script and the actors and decided that it was gonna be a hard sell to audiences as just another mid 50s low-budget "horror" pic. The basic outline of the plot has so many European stereotyped characters and so many plot clichés that no one would ever go to see it.

So I bet they did some minor changes to the dialog, replaced some of the standard scary background music with a lighter score and told the actors to play it for laughs with tongue in check. If you judge it as a sort of send-up of it's genre it fares a lot better then if you try to take it seriously. A lot of the jokes fall flat and the actors seem to do their best with it but as a "scary" movie it fails miserably. I will give them the benefit of the doubt and five stars for the effort.

This movie seems to be pulling in so many different directions at once that it's difficult to figure out exactly what the filmmakers were actually trying to achieve. Was this intended to be a science- fiction thriller, a political comment on totalitarianism, a comedy or perhaps all three at once? It certainly seems to be a bit of all three at various times, and sometimes all three at the same time. Perhaps it is for that reason that the cumulative effect is a bit bizarre and doesn't quite work. For example, if this movie wasn't intended to be a comedy then why did they cast Paul Douglas and Leslie Phillips, both of whom were known principally for playing comic parts, in the two lead roles? And why do the police who administer the supposed Police State in the movie go about dressed in comic opera uniforms and seem no more formidable than the proverbial "Keystone Kops"? Even the head of the police comes off as such a hopeless buffoon that it is impossible to feel the least bit intimidated by him. One gets the impression that the country in the film was supposed to represent a sort of miniature Nazi Germany or Stalinist Soviet Union, but it simply comes off as a slightly bonkers version of San Marino or Andorra, complete with the obligatory colorful folkways.

See this if you have never seen it, just for the experience of a film that is so truly strange that it is almost impossible to categorize under any single genre.

My impression of this wonderful tale is colored by my experience seeing it for the first time at age ten on the late late show in NYC. Although there are lighthearted moments, to me, it didn't (and still doesn't) play for laughs. I find it well-constructed, written and acted by all involved.

The scene on the train is nice, as I especially enjoy scenes on trains. The action continues at a perfect pace through the whole movie. There is the usual mysterious mad scientist.

A mark of quality in a film like this is that the principal players are in roles that make them accessible; they are real people and not just cardboard cutout characters. You feel as though you could at least strike up a conversation with them and try to figure out this mystery.

The movie is not currently in copyright, so is available on www.archive.org for viewing or downloading, which I highly recommend. Invite some friends over, pop some corn, make some nachos, and have a great time.

THE GAMMA PEOPLE is a weird and unsuccessful science fiction B-movie of the mid 1950s, shot in the UK substituting for Eastern Europe. It was directed by John Gilling, a man with a respectable career whose highs include the excellent double bill he made for Hammer Studios, THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES and THE REPTILE. Sadly, it's one of his lesser works, a film which all over the place tonally and which is more laughable than anything else. A couple of characters board a train and head into an Iron Curtain country, where they discover a mad plot to mutate children with radiation. Said children aren't remotely scary and British viewers had to wait until VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED until the story subject was done properly. Paul Douglas is way too old and bloated to be the hero, although Leslie Phillips does the comedy well (of course) and Eva Bartok is very fine.

This movie is very deceiving.It seems to have a good story that makes sense but it's actually just an anti-Hitler movie full of plot holes.For once someone actually tried to make a good movie,they just failed. It starts with a train car taking several minutes to gently break away from the train.The car only has 2 people(reporters) in it because that's completely normal. One guy pushes the buzzer for the waitress(I have never been on a train but I doubt those buttons ever existed) and he immediately gets up to check on why she hasn't shown up.Nevermind that there were NO wires going from their car to the rest of the train.It was 1956, I guess they had wireless buttons. As their car drifts away from the train,we see two Hitler youth looking kids run out and throw the track switch so the car goes to their town.How did they know the car had broken free? The car stops and there's 10 minutes of time killing confusion before we learn that they are in an imaginary country that is exactly like Nazi Germany(except for the French-style military uniforms),they even use some German words. From this point on the majority of the movie is too dark to see anything,so you won't realize how stupid it is. The whole time there are hints about the reporters never being able to leave but there is nothing in the story to actually support that. There is also some stuff about weird masks that never makes any sense. One reporter gets beat up by a kid on a swing.The other one(who is fat & old and wears his pants around his neck) easily outruns a group of "goons". They get a car and drive into the country.It gets a flat and they all get out immediately and run to the front of the car,which immediately blows up. Then the fat guy tells the skinny guy to run back to the city to get help!!!While he and the girl they found run to Hitler's castle. Everything that happens in the castle is stupid and I won't waste any more time on this movie. Although I have nothing good to say about this movie,I am going to say you might want to give it a chance just to see how silly it is.