UFO Film Prints...

[Sighing Flosser]

Hi everyone,

I am trying to locate a print of an old short film about flying saucers for a documentary I'm making. The film was called Attack of the Flying Saucers. It was made sometime in the late fifties, and apparently it featured contactees Reinhold Schmidt and Daniel Fry.

Do any of you know anyone who collects prints of old films dealing with UFOs? I think the only way this film will ever come to light is if I can find a private collector with a print. If any of you can suggest someone with an interest in UFO film prints, I would greatly appreciate it.

Here is a little bit of information about the film that I was able to find, if you're interested: ATTACK OF THE FLYING SAUCERS (1957) Ron Ormond in '50s Horror and Sci-Fi Forum

Thanks!

 

[Constance]

You might find help by calling universities with film schools or searching online for the locations of film archives. New York and Los Angeles are probably the most likely locations for these. Florida State University has a film school straddling the main campus in Tallahassee and a more production- oriented program in Sarasota. Or perhaps start with the American Film Institute. Good luck.

ps, the daughter of friends of mine lives in LA, writes screenplays, and wrote, produced, and directed her first feature-length film two years ago. I'll ask her if she knows anyone you might call.

 

[Burnt State]

Psychotronic Article

In the article above it identifies that the Contactees were not in this film but were friends of the woman who purchased this short movie from Germany because it had a flying saucer in it so it was reedited and had new audio in place to be part of a triple z-movie feature for drive-ins. These low budget flicks would probably not be held in any library. Your best bet is eBay and probably more 35mm than 16mm. Early UFO docs and films show up there all the time. I collect the ones that interest me when they are affordable. But this fiction flick, to the best of my knowledge, has not come up in the last ten years.

 

[Sighing Flosser]

You might find help by calling universities with film schools or searching online for the locations of film archives. New York and Los Angeles are probably the most likely locations for these. Florida State University has a film school straddling the main campus in Tallahassee and a more production- oriented program in Sarasota. Or perhaps start with the American Film Institute. Good luck.

ps, the daughter of friends of mine lives in LA, writes screenplays, and wrote, produced, and directed her first feature-length film two years ago. I'll ask her if she knows anyone you might call.

Thanks Constance!

 

[Sighing Flosser]

Psychotronic Article

In the article above it identifies that the Contactees were not in this film but were friends of the woman who purchased this short movie from Germany because it had a flying saucer in it so it was reedited and had new audio in place to be part of a triple z-movie feature for drive-ins. These low budget flicks would probably not be held in any library. Your best bet is eBay and probably more 35mm than 16mm. Early UFO docs and films show up there all the time. I collect the ones that interest me when they are affordable. But this fiction flick, to the best of my knowledge, has not come up in the last ten years.

Thanks Robert! I was just listening to the Bruce Duensing tribute you did on Radio Misterioso with Red Pill Junkie. Great show.

Yes, the film was purchased by Ron Ormond and his wife June, who were low-budget filmmakers from the late 40s up through the late 70s. They were contemporaries of Ed Wood. In fact, Ed Wood stole a gorilla suit from them in the 50s. Bela Lugosi was the godfather of their son Tim, who is quoted quite a bit in the Psychotronic article. I've asked Tim about Attack of the Flying Saucers, but he doesn't know too much about it and he doesn't have a print. Unfortunately the Ormonds were pretty much their own distributor, so they "road showed" most of their films, meaning they drove their prints from state to state for screenings on their own. It's not surprising that Attack of the Flying Saucers has not come up on ebay in the last ten years because they didn't make very many prints of any of their films in the first place.

That forum posting about Attack of the Flying Saucers that I provided a link for earlier has been around for several years, and I just now noticed that in 2013 somebody posted a reply with some additional information about the film. Don't know how I missed that before. Anyway, it turns out the film was produced in West Germany in 1953, under the title Fliegende Untertassen, which translates as Flying Saucers. June Ormond was friends with Reinhold Schmidt for a while, so perhaps he helped facilitate the sale of the the film to the Ormonds. They dubbed the film into English and then tacked it onto a triple feature with a couple other films of theirs. I just emailed Henry Stevens about the original film, since it was made in Germany - maybe he'll know a German collector who I can contact.

By the way, Ron Ormond was also the west coast editor of Ray Palmer's Flying Saucers magazine for a year or so around 1959.

 

[Burnt State]

Glad you enjoyed the show about Bruce, @Sighing Flosser , that was an honor to do that one and getting to do it with Greg and RPJ made it even more special.

Ed Wood stealing the gorilla suit sounds pretty typical of an era of gorilla film making. What's your interest in this particular piece of footage and what kind of documentary are you looking to complete?

I was also going to suggest you look into the possibility of getting the original German print, though I'm sure there were probably few of those available as well. I've not run into any of these low budget flicks on eBay and I've been an avid collector for about 15 years now. But I focus on 16mm and do not even bother with 35mm. You might try searching through the completed listings to see if any of the Ed Wood or Ormond films have ever been listed and then contact those sellers directly. Good luck.

 

[Sighing Flosser]

Glad you enjoyed the show about Bruce, @Sighing Flosser , that was an honor to do that one and getting to do it with Greg and RPJ made it even more special.

Ed Wood stealing the gorilla suit sounds pretty typical of an era of gorilla film making. What's your interest in this particular piece of footage and what kind of documentary are you looking to complete?

I was also going to suggest you look into the possibility of getting the original German print, though I'm sure there were probably few of those available as well. I've not run into any of these low budget flicks on eBay and I've been an avid collector for about 15 years now. But I focus on 16mm and do not even bother with 35mm. You might try searching through the completed listings to see if any of the Ed Wood or Ormond films have ever been listed and then contact those sellers directly. Good luck.

I didn't know you could search completed listings on ebay. I've wanted to do that, though. That probably would be the best way to find existing Ormond prints. Thanks! I used to follow film prints on ebay kind of sporadically, but for the past three months or so I've been checking it daily. There are some other prints that I'd like to find for my documentary, besides the German Flying Saucer short. I am a film print collector myself, although I only have a small collection. A handful of 16mm prints and one 35mm print of Alligator, the giant sewer alligator movie with Robert Forster.

Yes, I'm looking into the availability of an original German print. That's why I emailed Henry Stevens - I think he has some contacts in Germany. And I'm pretty sure he speaks German himself. He did translate a lot of old German flying saucer articles from the fifties and sixties.

I'll PM you about my documentary....

 

[Goggs Mackay]

Have you tried contacting any organisations such as Mufon etc? Even if they don't have the film they may know someone who might. You could email people like Stanton Friedman (he does respond personally, in fact you can phone him - check his website). So there are many people who've been in the field for a long time and may know something. Try Tim Beckley?

 

[Sighing Flosser]

Have you tried contacting any organisations such as Mufon etc? Even if they don't have the film they may know someone who might. You could email people like Stanton Friedman (he does respond personally, in fact you can phone him - check his website). So there are many people who've been in the field for a long time and may know something. Try Tim Beckley?

Thanks Goggs! Those are great suggestions. I hadn't even considered Mufon or Stanton Friedman. I did try emailing Richard Dolan, but never got a reply. Tim Beckley is a great suggestion, too. Thanks!

 

[Burnt State]

you might try this guy: DNDF: Godsploitation: The Latter Films of Ron Ormond, but you probably already know him

even better - check out what this search for the german title revealed - someone (ShweizerFernsehen - youtube name) out there apparently is holding copyright of the german movie:

The other suggestion I was going to make is to post your request to a 16mm film collector's site. These used to be much more active pre-eBay and now it seems that most collector sites have just uploaded their content to eBay. You used to be able to post film requests on boards and if someone had that copy for sale you could access it. If you are really hard core about getting this I think the German route is probably the best option, but somewhere in America there will be prints as they were screened in drive-ins. If you can pin-point the likely southern state drive-in screening spots then contacting the families that owned those screening theatres who often have oodles of old films and memorabilia in basements might yield a rare result.

 

[Sighing Flosser]

you might try this guy: DNDF: Godsploitation: The Latter Films of Ron Ormond, but you probably already know him

even better - check out what this search for the german title revealed - someone (ShweizerFernsehen - youtube name) out there apparently is holding copyright of the german movie:

The other suggestion I was going to make is to post your request to a 16mm film collector's site. These used to be much more active pre-eBay and now it seems that most collector sites have just uploaded their content to eBay. You used to be able to post film requests on boards and if someone had that copy for sale you could access it. If you are really hard core about getting this I think the German route is probably the best option, but somewhere in America there will be prints as they were screened in drive-ins. If you can pin-point the likely southern state drive-in screening spots then contacting the families that owned those screening theatres who often have oodles of old films and memorabilia in basements might yield a rare result.

Thanks! I have read that article before, but I don't know the author. I do know the author of this article, though - it's probably the best article on the Ormonds: https://www.filmnashville.org/june/GreatBallsOfFire.pdf

Very interesting about the copyright holder of the original German film. I'll have to look into that further.

I did post a request on a 16mm collector's forum a few months ago, but never got a reply. But, your suggestion about looking into drive-ins where the film might have screened is a great idea. I'm looking into that right now.