Seeing Things That See You

In the mid 1950s buckets of courage would have been required for a movie producer to depict "flying saucers" as something other than fodder for science fiction fans, but that's exactly what the production team of Clarence Greene and Russell Rouse -- and particularly Greene -- accomplished when they brought a very serious side of the UFO issue to the silver screen.  These days, their self-described documentary motion picture might instead be called a docu-drama, but no matter what one calls the feature, it was all business. Unfortunately, Greene's public plea for the world's people to face the UFO issue in deadly earnest often failed to arouse the typical theater audience because it lacked the "Hollywood touch," concerning itself a little too much with facts and not enough with demanding lively action among the mostly non-professional actors.  Nevertheless, history should and must find a prominent place for this oddly unique motion picture, the two apparently legitimate Montana and Utah UFO films included within it, and the important historical period it brought to the silver screen way back in 1956.

Blogs being what they are, if this is your first visit and you start reading backwards from the most current entry you may become quickly confused or uninspired. However, if you begin at the beginning and work through the years consecutively, you will find much of interest here, including personal letters, photos, press book material and other things from my own collection.  To begin from the very first blog entry, simply click on the link below -- and thanks so much for your interest in "U.F.O." -- Robert Barrow  

http://ufothemovie.blogspot.com/2008/06/of-relatively-incredible-things.html

From Pennsylvania to Ontario

With the inclusion of these three newspaper clippings, our current exploration of various articles and reviews regarding the movie is ending.  It is rather interesting that the Canadian newspaper spelled Al Chop's last name as Chopp.  But what's a newspaper without the occasional typo?    In any event, thanks again to researcher Barry Greenwood for contributing  the scanned news clippings you've read over the past several weeks; his efforts made my work on these entries relatively uncomplicated.

Wendell Swanson's Mother

Among a wealth of newspaper and magazine articles I read about the movie over many years, never have I encountered anything about the family of radar expert Wendell Swanson, one of the few to portray himself and recreate his own role in "U.F.O."  Yet, among today's collection is a newspaper article spotlighting Swanson's mother, including a photo.  I am reminded of the late comedic actor and singer Jimmy Durante, who was fond of cracking the words, "Everybody wants to get into the act!"   (credit:  Barry Greenwood)