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Spaced Out
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| Year: |
1979
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Director: |
Norman J. Warren
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| Stars: |
Barry Stokes, Tony Maiden, Glory Annen, Michael Rowlatt, Ava Cadell, Kate Ferguson, Lynne Ross, Bill Mitchell
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| Genre: |
Comedy, Sex, Trash, Science Fiction |
| Rating: |
  5 (from 1 vote) |
| Review: |
Oliver (Barry Stokes) and his fiancée Prudence (Lynne Ross) have stopped their car by the park and are having an argument because he is feeling amorous while she would rather talk about curtains. Cliff (Michael Rowlatt) is walking his dog nearby and eavesdrops, seeing a vision of Prudence in her underwear, and Willy (Tony Maiden) has gathered a collection of porno magazines and is perusing them with great concentration when suddenly a bright light appears in the sky that makes them all look up. It is a spaceship, and it lands on a stretch of grass...
Did people in the seventies really go to the park to look at porno mags? Might explain how such publications ended up hidden in the bushes. That's just one of many examples of the past being another country where they do things differently, like making softcore science fiction movies which punters were only too happy to leave their houses to go and see. In truth, efforts like Spaced Out, or Outer Touch as it was also known, were really the last gasp of the British film industry's preoccupation with the sex comedy genre, and here low budget auteur Norman J. Warren offered up a slice of daftness more goodnatured than some.
A mark of how indebted to the rest of this run of moneyspinners (which were no longer as financially fruitful as they once were by this point) this was is that two of its leading men resemble stars of more famous movies, with Stokes very much in the Barry Evans mode and Maiden taking off Robin Askwith's act and look to a tee. His character may have been introduced to us masturbating in that public space, but Maiden emerges as the most likeable actor here, so when all four of them are taken aboard the spacecraft it is Willy who turns out to be the hero, unlikely as this initially appears unless you could predict that kind of pandering to a certain section of the audience.
On that spaceship, which promptly takes off with its new passengers, reside three young women who are from a race of females from a distant planet, so they have never seen a man before. Neither do they know what sex is (how exactly were they created, one wonders?), so when they get a look at Willy's dodgy mags they are naturally intrigued, with the warlike Skipper (Kate Ferguson) thinking they depict combat, and the engineer, Partha (future sex guru in real life Ava Cadell), believing it's a sport. Yes, it's the old Star Trek, "Tell me Captain, what is this thing you call love?" cliché again, only with a twist.
Willy may be a stammering virgin, but Cliff is more of a go-getter and sexually aggressive; interestingly he is punished for his vigour while Oliver, who adopts this persona for a while, only gets to seduce the frigid Prudence when he stops blustering and she warms to his decency rather than be impressed by any masculine forthrightness. With such a small cast, everyone gets a chance in the limelight, such as it was for a little seen film like this, with the broadly overstated acting on the level of a pantomime throughout, but not too painful for all that. Alas, it's not too funny either, but there is plenty of nudity if that is the sole reason you want to watch this. Also notable is that the voice of the Wurlitzer in the British version was Bill Mitchell, one of the most recognisable voiceover men in the business which will have you wondering when he's going to try and sell you a watch or something. At least they had someone for introducing the movie's trailer.
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| Reviewer: |
Graeme Clark
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