UFOs and Pilot in Pursuit Likened to Cat and Mouse Encounter

Reviewers continued to both praise and find fault with the motion picture's director and production values, but aside from that we must consider "U.F.O." as profoundly significant for its early warning about strange things in our skies.  In 2024, we observe that its direction in 1956 was nothing less than prophetic, as we are now extremely aware of government concern and ongoing investigations.

Also today we feature a newspaper printing of the movie's most familiar poster, and we find it interesting how one review compares the famous 1952 Washington, DC UFO encounter involving several objects surrounding a military pilot to a kitten playing with a mouse.

While many newspapers listed Tom Towers as Powers thanks to a press book error, here we actually see a news clipping where the story title lists him as Powers, but the text itself correctly names him as Towers.  As we've noted before, the fact that there was a real movie actor named Tom Powers only added to the confusion -- which Towers and I were finally able to correct to some degree by the 1970s in TV Guide and other publications. (credit:  Barry Greenwood)

Reporters Are Actors, Says Towers

Tom Towers, interviewed by another reporter here as the movie premiered, said a thing or two I hadn't heard from him before, particularly where he notes that reporters may need to become "actors" to get stories on occasion.  This was interesting because I have accepted for years the premise that writers in general are all actors -- and sometimes better at acting than established actors as they pursue their craft and appear in public.  Elsewhere today, we note that producer Clarence Greene brought documents to an interview with the Boston Globe, and we wonder whether these comprised long-missing things, including studio information, that Greene put into the hands of a Los Angeles security company which no longer has possession of them. (credit:  Barry Greenwood)

Hot Water and Wire Brushes

It was good to see the occasional newspaper article focusing upon key personnel other than Clarence Greene or Tom Towers.  In this collection, American Airlines pilot Willis Sperry and former Project Blue Book chief Edward Ruppelt receive prominent mention.  We also find something we haven't seen in newsprint before:  A specific instance where a theater's advertisement for the movie involved painting flying saucer images all over the street.  Apparently, finding a guaranteed method to scrub away the images days later was difficult until the time-tested method of mixing boys, hot water and wire brushes was organized, kind of like a reverse (Mark Twain's) Tom Sawyer scene about whitewash and a fence. (credit: Barry Greenwood)

Cincinnati's Hometown Son

Articles from a Cincinnati newspaper make it clear that Tom Towers grew up in that city.  Also of interest is a reference to Dick Williams, another member of the newspaper industry who may have played his own very brief role in the movie, though this is not really clarified, the way the article is worded.  In a companion item a day earlier from the Cincinnati Enquirer, the newspaper honors Towers by including a photo from the movie (a better quality picture will be found among our earliest blog entries), but simultaneously degrades the entire effort when the motion picture is incorrectly titled as "U.F.I." with a short caption which should have easily been caught by an editor before -30- (Sorry, but I just had to show off my now irrelevant newspaper knowledge:  -30- was once a newspaper code number representing the end of a reporter's story.  Actually, there exists an old Jack Webb movie entitled "-30-"). (credit:  Barry Greenwood)

The Senator Did Not Reply

The Newsday piece brought out something of intrigue:  Producer Clarence Greene had attempted unsuccessfully to contact Senator Richard Russell (D-GA) about a very interesting UFO sighting he experienced while flying over Europe several years ago.  Many UFO researchers in later years were very familiar with Sen. Russell's incident and speculation that he did not speak about it due to either official recommendations or to his own caution about releasing data which might in some slim way involve national security (and there would also be thoughts of embarrassment in the fifties, for to report UFOs as a prominent person left one open to a windstorm of press inquiries and strange inquirers).  Also shown here today, the Portland news clipping, while informative, erred in claiming that Chop narrated his part, when it was Towers who portrayed Chop all the way through.  (credit:  Barry Greenwood)

From California to Ohio to D.C.

Many newspaper reporters and reviewers expressed at least some enthusiasm about the movie's opening, as shown in this collection, but ultimately the most influential reviewers -- the theater audience -- were less than fully on board with this Greene-Rouse production. (credit:  Barry Greenwood)

Hedda Hopper's Hollywood

When the subject of Hollywood gossip columnists came up in the 1950s, the first name on everybody's mind would be Hedda Hopper.  So popular were her praises and barbs about celebrities and their movies that she even turned up in a movie or two (maybe more) herself in a bit part.  Here, she says nice things about "U.F.O." and it may be of interest as a dateline that Hopper also references actor John Wayne and plans for his big-budget film, "The Alamo."  

Another brief article included today mentions official documents placed with Title Insurance and Trust Co. of Los Angeles.  Unfortunately, when I inquired about these in the seventies they were long gone and the firm had no idea of their whereabouts.

Of, by now, familiar significance, another article mentions in error that Capt. Edward Ruppelt played his own role -- and muddies things up even more by stating Maj. Dewey Fournet played himself, which he did not (but like Ruppelt and Al chop he did consult on the film's production). (credit:  Barry Greenwood)

Clarence Greene Promotes the Movie in Boston

Interviews with or even comments from co-producer Russell Rouse regarding the motion picture are apparently rare, probably because "U.F.O." was primarily Clarence Greene's "baby."  Still, occasional reminders that the Greene-Rouse team turned out other notable films are worthwhile and titles are mentioned in a brief Boston Globe article (5-30-1956).  When a Boston Globe reporter released a longer story about Greene's visit to Boston (6-1-1956)  as the movie was set to open, he tied in some actual UFO history with the story on screen, thereby firming up the film as a documentary and not merely entertainment for theater popcorn fans.  (credit:  Barry Greenwood)

Mr. and Mrs. Al Chop Promotional Photo

Age and reproduction quality of the newspaper photo showing Al Chop and his wife together isn't the best, but it does offer another example of various partnerships involved in assuring accuracy for the documentary motion picture.  As we mentioned several years ago when first posting this rarely seen picture, the movie depicts Mrs. Chop remaining home while husband Al speeds off to Washington National during an historic night of radar/visually-confirmed UFO activity. However, in reality she accompanied him and was present just outside the restricted radar room as her husband joined military officials and air traffic personnel in watching the unknowns on the radar scope, even as one pilot was reportedly surrounded by bright objects in the sky.

One article here, unfortunately, repeats the error that Edward J. Ruppelt played himself in the film -- an error in which I played a part in my earlier writing, to my everlasting regret.  It turns out that the studio press book itself initially printed this error, and in later years Al Chop himself repeated it in a letter to me, surely a mistake which went unnoticed as he went into detail about his own relationship to the movie.  Ruppelt's brief depiction was actually portrayed by Robert Phillips, one of the few professional actors who graced the documentary.

Regarding the radio interview with producer Clarence Greene, adding a recording of this likely unique interview to the archives would have been great, but I am unaware that any such recording survived the years. (article credit: Barry Greenwood)

Gregory Peck's Peg Leg Comes Out Ahead in One Article

Today, having featured several days of aviation column entries written by "U.F.O." lead player Tom Towers in the fifties, we turn back to various articles by others.  Writer Alfred Kay's piece about the movie was all too typical of so much newspaper reporting about the UFO subject back then, when ridicule, derision and gaining points for a laugh was often an implied editorial policy. Kay's reference to the film as an hour-long feature when it was actually just over an hour and a half in length was careless, but his criticism that very few of the "actors" seemed at ease in front of the cameras should have been tempered -- had he bothered to read the studio's press book -- with an acknowledgement that most of them were L.A. area law enforcement officers invited by the producers to recreate briefly various roles based upon historical  events. Using non-professional actors does not necessarily result in Shakespearean theater, if that's what Kay anticipated.

Personally, I was far more intrigued by Kay's report regarding the pain and problems actor Gregory Peck endured with a peg leg prosthesis while filming "Moby Dick."  Clarence Greene's "U.F.O." has been described as "wooden" for its acting by some, so maybe the inclusion of a peg leg would have satisfied Kay's need to focus upon a prop.  But in the end, he simply dissolves into lame humor as he casts the UFO subject aside.

Elsewhere, the movie menu including "U.F.O." among other features is fair enough, but the brief L.A. Evening News article suggesting UFOs are "probably" not hostile and perhaps beneficial to the human race certainly takes a lot for granted.  Then again, this WAS the 1950s era, when "space brothers" were all the rage.    (credit:  Barry Greenwood)

Not Exactly Amalgamated

As we suggested in the previous blog entry, a future visit wasn't looking trouble-free for the Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs of America, at least not when they held their convention in Los Angeles in July of 1959.  In an attempt to distance their local subcommittee from the controversial group, officials of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) communicated through Tom Towers that the "convention" hosting "contactees" and others of questionable repute was bad news for legitimate UFO research.  Having met Maj. Donald Keyhoe in the sixties, I am more than familiar with his outrage over groups which -- loosely or otherwise -- attempted to claim an association with NICAP when it was under his influence. (credit:  Barry Greenwood)