The Bamboo Saucer

The Bamboo Saucer is a independently made 1968 Cold War science fiction film drama about competing American and Russian teams that discover a flying saucer in Communist China.[1] The film was re-released in 1969 under the title Collision Course with an edited down runtime of 90 minutes.

This was the final film for both actors Dan Duryea and Nan Leslie.

Test pilot Fred Norwood (John Ericson) is flying the experimental X-109 (actually an U.S. Airforce Lockheed F-104 Starfighter jet aircraft accompanied by a chase plane (another F-104). During the flight testing, Norwood finds himself pursued by a flying saucer and believes he has to engage in a series of tricky aerobatics to protect himself. The ace pilot amazingly pulls out of a dive at Mach 3.12 (2,320.00 MPH, 3,402 Ft. per Second from 30,000 Feet), and Fred and the "experimental" X-109 plane fortunately survive the wild flight.

Once on the ground, Norwood is informed that the radar tracking his jet picked up no other aircraft near him except the chase plane. Though Norwood insists on what he saw, his superiors, who were monitoring his vital signs, think he has had a series of hallucinations, they chastise him and order him off the project. Blanchard Andy Romano, the USAF pilot of the chase plane, exits the room in an obviously frightened and nervous state; he parrots words about not seeing another aircraft on the flight and that the reported event was merely an aerial inversion. When shaky Blanchard falters with his explanation, he is again prompted what to say by the panel members in the room.

Now angered and determined, Fred Norwood decides to prove what he saw by patrolling the area in a USAF surplus North American P-51 Mustang equipped with futuristic laser radar until he reaches the point of exhaustion. As Norwood sleeps, his best friend, Joe Vetry William Mims, a fellow pilot who is married to Norwood's sister Dorothy Nan Leslie, takes off in the Mustang when the radar set picks up an unidentified flying object. Fred and Dorothy view Joe's aircraft vanish off the radar screen; later Federal Aviation Administration crash investigators tell Fred that his friend's Mustang disintegrated in mid air in a manner similar to the accounts of the Mantell UFO incident.

Fred Norwood finds himself summoned to Washington D.C. to meet with Hank Peters Dan Duryea(for once not playing a sneering villain), a member of an influential, unnamed agency of the United States Government. Hank Peters believes Fred Norwood's account and shows him a sketch that Fred identifies as the same kind of blue saucer that buzzed the, I mean X-109. Peters tells Norwood that the sketch was provided from intelligence sources based in Red China. Because of Fred's familiarity with a variety of aircraft, he is asked to accompany Peters and two scientists who will be parachuted into Red China. Peters informs Fred that there are reliable sources that report the two humanoid aliens in the saucer died, likely from exposure to Earth bacteria; and due to rapid (probably stinking), deterioration, their bodies were reported as cremated by Chinese peasants.

At the Chinese drop zone, they are met by American agent Sam Archibald James Hong (Big Bang's Chinese waiter), who leads them to the saucer now hidden inside the ruins of a Catholic church. Due to the Communists having destroyed the church, the upset locals assist the Americans in any way possible. On traveling to their destination while evading units of the People's Liberation Army, they run across a party of Russian scientists led by their own version of Agent Hank Peters, Comrade Zagorsky Vincent Beck. Among the group of 4 Russians is scientist Anna Karachev Lois Nettleton (Miss Chicago of 1948). After some tense moments the two competing parties begrudgingly decide to cooperate in investigating the hidden saucer.

Soon they are discovered by The Chinese Army, and after a wild firefight when 2 Russians and 2 Americans and 1 Chinese (all 5 are eventually killed) stand off the Chinese Army, killing at least 61 Chinese soldiers, the three survivors in the flying saucer... 2 Americans (Ericson and Hastings) and one of the Russian scientists (Lois Nettleton) board the saucer, activate it, take off, and fly out of Chinese airspace. A pre-programmed autopilot course instantly takes control and flies them away from Earth past the Moon, past Mars, and on a collision course with Saturn. Unable to return unless they work together to control the alien UFO, they are finally successful and able return to Earth in less than a minute. The trio decides to land in Geneva, Switzerland. Then a quote from President John F. Kennedy about mutual human cooperation in space flashes on screen.

Jerry Fairbanks was a producer and sometimes director of a variety of cinematic short subjects series such as Strange as It Seems and Popular Science. A 1954 film trade article stated that Fairbanks was preparing his first theatrical motion picture, titled Project Saucer that was to be filmed in widescreen and color.[2] A 1964 article stated that Fairbanks was moving production of his film Operation Blue Book from a runaway production in Spain to be filmed in the USA.[3]

Fairbanks persevered and had a collaborator, Frank Telford, rewrite the screenplay by Alford "Rip" Van Ronkel and special effects man John P. Fulton with Telford directing the film in 1966.[4] Fairbanks contacted the office of the United States Secretary of Defense about his screenplay. In a April 12, 1966 reply, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense informed Fairbanks that they had a "negative reaction" to Project Saucer. They recommended that the screenplay delete any reference to the CIA, saying it would not be appropriate to place one of their operatives in the fictionalized situation. Furthermore, the flying saucer investigation was not factually set up; the Air Force's General was an unnecessarily uncomplimentary character and would not act as he does in the screenplay; it was also not clear just what part the Air Force played in the aircraft testing; any one of the aircraft manufacturers could clarify the film's opening sequence; finally, the Air Force should not be utilized or included in the air drop inside Chinese air space[5]

Fairbanks incorporated the changes in the finished screenplay. Co-screenwriter, associate producer, and special effects expert John P. Fulton died during filming.[6] The film was retitled The Bamboo Saucer, though it had no relation to the 1967 published science fiction novel The Flight of the Bamboo Saucer. The experimental X-109 aircraft was actually Air Force stock footage of a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. The film was shot in 1966[7][8] by cinematographer Hal Mohr at Lone Pine, California, where a standing Western Street set was turned into a Chinese village for the production.[9]

composed by Reinhold Glière

The Bamboo Saucer was released on DVD and Blu-ray in April 2014 by Olive Films, formatted in the anamorphic widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio. It is also available for viewing at YouTube.