Frank Crisp - The Night Callers

[dem bones]

Frank Crisp - The Night Callers (Panther, Oct. 1961: originally John Long, 1960)

Blurb
ONE BY ONE THE VICTIMS VANISHED
When suburban homes are entered at night without reason and offices are secretly investigated — and when attractive young women vanish without trace one after another in identical circumstances — even Scotland Yard find it difficult to take a rational view of the situation.

These are the sinister circumstances of this spine-chilling story of a desperate struggle for man's survival with the kidnappers from space.

A meteorite lands in a field near Aylesbury. Joe Spears, long distance trucker, pulls over to investigate. The frosty white shell crumbles to ash at his touch to reveal a grey crystal, "the size of a hen's egg," beneath. On his return to the depot in Holloway, he passes the crystal around. Nobody can hold onto it for long, it is freezing to the touch.

Harold Gowland, the managing director and principle shareholder in Metro Heating Alliance, takes Spears' find home to Hemsley Heath, intent on having it investigated by Dr. Geoffrey Morley - chief physicist, tech. director, egghead - at the Barstow Green Radar Plant (Morley's company have been fitting their central heating). Before settling down to bed, he notes that the icy crystal is luminous and seems to be growing!

That night Gowland's home is burgled, the intruder making away with a grey suit, dark grey raincoat and brown hat. Detectives are baffled as to how the culprit forced entry and exit through a locked door, but at least they had the good grace to leave behind several fingerprints ...of a sort.

The following morning Harold drives out to the Radar Plant. Dr. Morley tasks Keith Ruddick, the brilliant young beatnik scientist, with analysing the crystal. A baffled Ruddick reports back that the selenium crystal is "a revolutionary development, combing the principles of the transistor and a vacuum tube," hence overnight reports of local interference with TV and FM reception.

Miss Elsie Carson, Morley's Girl Friday, is working late in the office when she comes over unwell. Adding to her discomfort, the certainty that there is a wheezing intruder in the adjoining room. She calls the police, who assure her that she is mistaken, there is nothing to suggest a break-in, it is a simple case of hysterical female alone in a room after dark, etc. Morley is not so sure. How to explain the dirty floor? A thorough inspection of his office reveals that the intruder has left a hand print in the soil of the window-box. He takes a plaster cast. Entry was effected by a heavy breathing beast with three fingers.

Morley arranges a meeting with Professor Costain of the Government's Experimental Radio Station at Horston Hill. The Professor confirms the area surrounding the Radar Plant was subjected to similar TV interference to that complained of by viewers in the vicinity of Hemsley the previous evening.

Morley resolves to spend a night alone in the office watching over the crystal.

[To be continued ...]

Basis for the 1965 Armitage movie, The Night Caller, aka Blood Beast from Outer Space, directed by John Gilling. As with the movie it's a slow burner, won't be rushed, but once we've reached chapter 8 - A Girl Goes Missing - things likely to pick up some.


For Michel. Inspiration and dear friend.

[franklinmarsh]

Top stuff Dem! I think the film keeps cropping up on Talking Pictures in a weird colourised version. Well worth a look.

[franklinmarsh]

Here's something I jotted down about the film version - I thought the version shown on Talking Pictures was colourised, which added to the other-worldliness. What a terrific little picture. If you're going for classic cliches, go for the best - The Army (Major John Carson, Sergeant Jack Watson - who could be the same character he played in The Wild Geese)

Scientists (Maurice Denham, Patricia (Phwoar!)Haines looking stunning, John Saxon - John Saxon?!?!!?WTF??!!? The bloke from Enter The Dragon? Is he trying to be British? If so, he's pretty good.) The Old Bill (Alfred Burke,Stanley Meadows,Ballard Berkley). Top notch. And if you're going to have a second hand bookshop that doubles as a Soho jazz-mag emporium, put Aubrey Morris in charge of it. A middle aged couple worried about their daughter's disappearance? I recommend Warren Mitchell and Marianne Stone.

A pin up periodical called Bikini Girl magazine, an Alien with a joke shop horror hand and Robert Rietty's voice. A rubbish anti-climactic ending - this film has everything. Oh, tip for colourisers - if you're going to colour in a 1960s British film, don't colour in the telly they're watching.

[dem bones]

Rarely watch TV these days, but when I do, it's almost invariably Talking Pictures, and have caught the film version (colourised) a few times over recent months. Think the scary "joke shop horror hand" - or a close relative - made a comeback in the Amicus Tales From The Crypt (Reflection of Death episode).

Back to the novel. Have reached p. 63 (of 155).

So, no sooner have we remarked the sedate pace than it all kicks off.

Morley's vigil. It's agreed beforehand that he'll keep Prof. Costain notified of any peculiar developments, an arrangement which ultimately plays a part in his undoing.

Morley, who can't abide a wasted evening, settles down to his paperwork. The crystal just sits there being a crystal. How irritating. Whose stupid idea was this stakeout anyhow? But wait ... the icy disc appears to be transforming ... vibrating .... glowing .... growing .... What begins as a low hum increases alarmingly in pitch and volume until a nauseous, badly frightened Morley - retires - with great difficulty - to an adjoining cloakroom to splash water on his face. Miss Carson's reputation is vindicated. The crystal is by now "bloated into an awesome phenomenon threatening to envelop the whole room."

Footsteps in the corridor, "the strangest he has ever heard," accompanied by "a low whistling sound of breathing, like something respiring through an artificial lung." It's like he's being haunted by the marsh monster from The Experiment. Morley sees the door to his office standing ajar. By the time he returns to the room, the prowler has vanished via a window, and with he/she/it, the crystal!

Morley catches sight of something that might be a man passing between trees in the direction of the car park. He attempts to alert a guard on the gate, but too late. The intruder jacks the Doctor's Humber, deliberately running him down as he speeds from the plant.

Four months on from the murder of Dr. Morley, a troubling new development. Joy Malone, 20, of West Hendon, secretary to missile expert Colonel Whitehead at the War Office, goes missing, presumed abducted .....

[helrunar]

The film Night Callers has been on my to-watch list for a few years now. I never heard of it before I began researching British 60s genre films that were somehow unknown over here, such as Devils of Darkness and Beast of Morocco (which I finally tracked down earlier this year in a tacky pan and scan grey market disc derived from an old VHS).

Patricia Haines ... I always find something deliciously uncanny in her performances. My favorite is her appearance in this episode of The Baron, a circa 1966 ITV series that starred Dana Andrews' very stiff and boring brother, Steve Forrest. But the delightful Sue Lloyd made up for Forrest's lack of zing. Haines showed up in this extraordinary red garment, fashioned of some clinging substance--very va-va-voom (that's how we say "Phwoar!" over here in the United States of Imbecility). She played a ruthless lady mobster... I've pondered buying the box set of this series mainly for her performance (but also for Raymond Huntley who was delectably unpleasant in a role as a corrupt executive--and a few others--I think Wyngarde showed up in one of these, too).

Then there was 1971's The Virgin Witch, directed by The Avengers lead stuntman and fight coordinator Ray Austin. Very British in its vein of veiled debauchery. In this one, Haines plays a ruthless lesbian High Priestess of a Satanic Witches coven holding secret rites on an isolated country estate. A lot of people find that film a yawnfest but for me, Haines is as compelling as ever. The scene where a barely restrained Haines takes the bust measurements of the latest nude acolyte (played by some tired British Playboy model whose name escapes me) is memorable.

cheers. H.

[andydecker]

Nov 3, 2018 2:58:47 GMT helrunar said:

Then there was 1971's The Virgin Witch, directed by The Avengers lead stuntman and fight coordinator Ray Austin. Very British in its vein of veiled debauchery. In this one, Haines plays a ruthless lesbian High Priestess of a Satanic Witches coven holding secret rites on an isolated country estate. A lot of people find that film a yawnfest but for me, Haines is as compelling as ever. The scene where a barely restrained Haines takes the bust measurements of the latest nude acolyte (played by some tired British Playboy model whose name escapes me) is memorable.

cheers. H.

You mean Ann or Vicki Michelle I like this movie a lot. Even have the novelisation which I still haven't read and stands next to the also unread novelisation of Vampires, the Laraz movie. Virgin Witch has a lot of problems, the very similiar Satan's Slave is a much better movie. But it is so typically British.

[dem bones]

Nov 4, 2018 16:44:07 GMT andydecker said:

Nov 3, 2018 2:58:47 GMT helrunar said:

Then there was 1971's The Virgin Witch, directed by The Avengers lead stuntman and fight coordinator Ray Austin. Very British in its vein of veiled debauchery. In this one, Haines plays a ruthless lesbian High Priestess of a Satanic Witches coven holding secret rites on an isolated country estate. A lot of people find that film a yawnfest but for me, Haines is as compelling as ever. The scene where a barely restrained Haines takes the bust measurements of the latest nude acolyte (played by some tired British Playboy model whose name escapes me) is memorable.

cheers. H.

You mean Ann or Vicki Michelle I like this movie a lot. Even have the novelisation which I still haven't read and stands next to the also unread novelisation of Vampires, the Laraz movie.

Not read Virgin Witch but the steamy Vampyres novelisation is super!

The Night Callers has now mutated into a police procedural with Special Branch Commander Richard Delabo assigned to investigate the disappearance of Joyce. We learn from Mr & Mrs. Malone that their daughter's ambition was to become an actress, hence her recent visit to a professional photographer in Soho. A "Mr. Bostok" delivered the impressive results in person. Mr. Malone, who answered the door, remembers him well, a chap in a dark grey raincoat and soft, broad brimmed hat with a scarf concealing the lower half of his face - "the man's eyes and breathing were distinctly unnatural."

Jane Lilburn, a nineteen-year-old West End sales assistant, is the next to vanish, circumstances much the same as her predecessor. Teenage brother (sullen, leather jacket, narrow-bottomed trousers, smokes: sounds like a top man) recalls this creepy, weird green eyed guy visiting the house with a parcel, but Mrs. Lilburn quickly reassures Delabo that "he reads too many of those awful paperback books." Delabo notes that both girls were subscribers to "a glossy, smart production called Model Girl (upgraded to the more distinctive Bikini Girl for the film). Jane has ringed an ad in the current Christmas issue.

"Independent Television film producer wishes interview Young Ladies with looks, personality and acting ability. Ambition more important than experience. Age 18-23. Please write, with recent photograph. Box D142. Model Girl"

Could Mr. Bostok and the Model Girl advertiser be one and the same entity?

Off to Soho to find out.

[dem bones]

"Will any person who has replied to this advertisement in the Model Girls magazine, December issue, please telephone New Scotland Yard at once. Whitehall 1212"

Delabo visits Thornburn's Bookshop, Tilburn Street, Soho, whose proprietor, Philip Thornburn, is a former wrestler. A 'Q.T. Bostok' pays well to use the premises as a mail drop. With a recent obscenity bust to his name, Thornburn finds it expedient to co-operate with the police, though the best he can tell them about his enigmatic client is "I think he wears a mask."

The subsequent stake out ends in tragedy. Alert to the danger, Bostok breaks Thornburn's neck with a single blow, performs a miraculous escape onto the Charing Cross Road where the stolen black Humber lies in wait. Bleeding from a leg wound sustained during a Spring-heeled Jack leap through a window, he's driven away by an accomplice who might be his identical twin.

The police have established that twenty aspiring actresses have been abducted in the fortnight since the December Model Girls was published, but to what end? On December 19th, Delago makes a public appeal, broadcast simultaneously on both TV channels. It transpires that the advertisement attracted hundreds of replies, but Bostok was very choosey about which applicants to pursue. What kind of perve is he, anyhow?

A lead. Mr. Ames of Kilburn answers the appeal. Only this afternoon, his nineteen-year-old daughter, Eunice, a Bond Street beautician, received the ominous home visit from the limping asthmatic in the raincoat. Fortunately Eunice was out, and her father took in the parcel. Eunice proudly shows off the framed photograph, taken without the subject's knowledge, during her interview in the office of 'Bostok Film Productions,' Silver Square, Soho. It is, indeed, superb, the 3D effect quite unlike anything Delabo has even seen. He places the Ames family under 24 hour surveillance as we await the killer's next move.

Dr. Wentworth submits the lab report on Bostok's blood. In layman's terms, it's not human!

[dem bones]

Warning. Most likely spoiler ridden.

The film definitely horrors it up, probably out of necessity as, for such an incident filled novel, at times there doesn't seem to be much going on (maybe explains why I made such hard work of it: the novel gets its work done in a compact 155 pages). That said, I very much enjoyed it. Eunice, resenting her every move outside the house being spied upon, retires to bedroom to admire her photograph. As the night wears on, it takes on a luminous glow. Her image is replaced by a glimpse into a strange and wonderful far distant land. A disembodied voice instructs her how to make her escape, and we're off on a car chase to the Cotswolds via a crafty detour in Hanger Lane (good thing the cops are on their mettle). The trail takes them to the Bostoks' bolt-hole, Lambrow Hall, a dilapidated Manor House on the outskirts of Hadden village, Delabo and his men arriving just in time to prevent Eunice joining her glamour girl predecessors on a one way trip to the Third Moon of Jupiter!

It's left to Professor Costain to explain the technical bits. The Crystal transfers matter into energy, energy back into matter, enabling the Bostoks and captives to travel to and from their home planet, Ganymede, at the speed of light. Why they should be so intent on kidnapping London girls is left to the reader to decide: I'm sure we can all be relied upon to draw the smuttiest conclusions. The Professor considers the abductees extremely fortunate as he's certain the Bostoks will give them a happier time of it than they could have hoped for back home. At least the aliens have left behind the crystal and five cloned raincoats for him to study ... blast, spoke too soon.

A low key ending entirely in keeping with what has gone before.

[ripper]

Meteorites landing in English fields...shades of Dr Who's Spearhead from Space and They came from Beyond Space, only they were both later than The Night Caller.

[sadako]

Frank Crisp was much better known for his endless seafaring, young adult adventures. I think The Night Caller and The Ape of London are his only sci-fi stories, which is a shame.

[sadako]

Virgin Witch is out on blu-ray, while I don’t think The Hand of Night ever hit VHS in the UK.

The Night Caller has been on DVD a few times, but never in widescreen. Out of all the TV broadcasts I watched, I’d say 1.66 looks the best aspect. In the US, it was released on DVD as Night Caller From Outer Space with an abominable, dated song replacing the groovy opening theme tune.

Finally. Anyone actually read Frank Crisp’s The Ape of London?

[helrunar]

I finally viewed Night Caller on youtube a couple of weeks ago. I definitely thought Bob Holmes cribbed some elements from it for the Dr Who serial "Spearhead from Space." I love British films of that period so I enjoyed it very much. I could see some feeling it was too slow or lacking in thrills or whatever but I thought much of it was pitch-perfect for the type of thing that it was. Aubrey Morris' cameo as the jazz mag shop proprietor was memorable. So sleazy.

H.

[sadako]

Yes, Aubrey is superbly sleazy in this. I must reread to see if any of that scene is in the book.
Weirdly, Robert Holmes’ Spearhead was more likely to have been recycled from his own story for Invasion (1965), another low budget Brit sci-fi actually set in a hospital.

[samdawson]

Dec 19, 2022 16:20:59 GMT sadako said:

Yes, Aubrey is superbly sleazy in this. I must reread to see if any of that scene is in the book.
Weirdly, Robert Holmes’ Spearhead was more likely to have been recycled from his own story for Invasion (1965), another low budget Brit sci-fi actually set in a hospital.

I believe that he did confirm this to colleagues, but quietly, as he wasn't sure how the BBC would react