'THE GAMMA PEOPLE'..........WACKY GAM-BOTS GONE WILD!

The Gamma People (1956)    This one may well be the most oddball, screwy movie that ever escaped out of the 1950's........in other words, WHAT THE BQ LIVES FOR!

               Sorry, we'll calm down now.......

               1950's films almost always remained strictly locked into their assigned genre.. (drama, adventure, western, mystery comedy, horror, etc,...)......with no crossovers allowed.........

                But this nutty little British, sci-fi item flagrantly bent all the rules.......wandering around in who the hell knows how many different directions........from light comedy to political sarcasm to thriller to science fiction to horror........mixing them all up with no apparent thought as to how the film was going to turn out overall.......

                 We could only take wild guesses as to what the filmmakers were going for here.....but who cares at this point. It breezily zips through about 75 minutes of pure insanity......

                 How beloved, barrel-chested Hollywood character actor Paul Douglas stumbled into this thing staggers the imagination.......(think of him as the John Goodman of the 1950's....)   Douglas, playing his standard role of the blustery, pushy, loudmouth with a heart of gold, is one of two journalists suddenly stranded in Gudavia, a tiny mythical Communist never-never land.

                Brit comic actor Leslie Phillips plays Douglas's preening, quipping journalistic cohort as if he just stepped out one his "Carry On" comedies..........and this odd couple find themselves trapped in a kind of low burlesque version of an Iron Curtain country........alternately comic, creepy and sinister.......(we warned you about how many genres this film's playing with simultaneously.....)

               Gudavia's ruled by Dr. Boronsky (Walter Rilla), a madman who's been busy zappin' all the Gudavian tykes with Gamma rays.

                And his results are what you might call......uneven. He either turns the kids into insufferable
brats who carry on like Hitler Youth rejects...........or mindless hulking, slack-jawed imbeciles, who menacingly stagger around resembling a cross between Richard Kiel's 'Jaws' villain and your typical Trump supporters.

                  We won't bother detailing all the swift turn of events that bring a satisfying close to this semi-satiric view of  totalitarian science gone awry........just hang on and enjoy it for yourselves as the film bounces through its multiple genres........

                   It's entirely possible the film hoped to gently spoof sci-fi-horror movies in the same way that 1953's Humphrey Bogart vehicle "Beat The Devil" poked sly fun at the gangster-noir genre......so  in that regard, consider it way, way head of its time......

                   So take your pick as to what you think "The Gamma People" was meant to be.......for us, considering the conservative decade that spawned it, it's a one-of-a-kind, whack-a-doodle  wonder....
......we're blastin' it with 3 bright Gamma rays.....(***)

                  Or as Paul Douglas remarks upon seeing the villain's castle......."Sinister looking dump, isn't it?"