During the early years of the science fiction film craze of the 1950s most alien visitors were hostile or extremely dangerous as in The Thing from Another World (1951), The War of the Worlds (1953) and Invaders from Mars (1953). There were a few exceptions to this such as the peaceful Klaatu (Michael Rennie) in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1953) and the benign visitors of It Came from Outer Space (1953) but rarely has a science fiction film depicted aliens trying to recruit a human to be the vocal spokesperson for their group. In Shirley Thompson Vesus the Aliens (1972), directed by Jim Sharman (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), the title character is a disaffected young woman still living at home in the dreary suburbs with her parents and young sister and clearly not the sort of person to represent any group due to her antagonistic, rebellious nature. Nevertheless, Shirley (Jane Hardens) is chosen by extraterrestrials to warn earthlings to stop all wars or they will destroy the planet. And do you think anyone pays attention to her?
Set in 1956, Shirley Thompson Versus the Aliens is a lo-fi experimental comedy-drama, based on a stage play by Sharman and Helmut Bakaitis, that presents the heroine’s story in a fragmented fashion involving flashbacks and flashforwards. Part of the film’s kooky appeal comes from the director’s fondness for fifties rock ‘n’ roll culture but also his satiric jabs at suburban life in Sydney, Australia. Sharman also makes it unclear if Shirley is imagining all of this – part of the film takes place in a psychiatric ward where she is under observation – or if the events are real. But rest assured that reality rarely intrudes on Sharman’s avant-garde treatment of the narrative which unfolds in under 70 minutes.
What becomes immediately obvious is that Shirley would rather hang out with her rockabilly, motorcycle-riding pals than stay at home with her nosy parents who are pressuring her to marry the boring, straight-laced Harold (Helmut Bakaitis). One night Shirley and her gang sneak into Luna Park, a popular amusement park in Sydney, to run amok among the rides and booths. When she enters a grotto-like funhouse, she feels an eerie presence that proves to be a visitor from another planet. The alien (who is never shown – no budget for that) convinces her to become the spokesperson for their group in exchange for granting her a unique power that is never specified.
Once Shirley learns what the alien wants her to tell the world, she realizes no one will believe her so she comes up with an alternate scheme. She steals a statue of a famous person from the local wax museum, animates it to move and talk like a human being (don’t ask how) and then has it deliver the alien’s message at the Olympics (which were held in Melbourne in 1956). The wax figure she chooses is Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, and at his live public appearance, he announces, “I am not who you think I am at all. I am, to put it quite bluntly, a creature from outer space…unless you heed my warning, not just the whole of Australia but the whole of the world as you know it today will be totally destroyed.” The crowd applauds wildly as if he were making a heroic speech but it’s obvious no one is really listening to him. This is typical of the film’s oddball humor and charm.
We never find out whether the aliens’ message is ever effectively delivered to mankind because the rest of Shirley Thompson Versus the Aliens is focused on the heroine’s confinement in a mental ward where she is questioned by two doctors. Shirley manages to recall everything that she experienced with the strangers but there are still unanswered questions. Is she actually pregnant? If so, is an alien responsible? And does the final shot suggest that she has completely gone crazy? I also have to wonder if Prince Philip, who died in 2021 at age 99, ever saw this movie?
Anyone looking for logic or a traditional narrative structure will probably be annoyed by Sharman’s playful approach. Sci-fi fans may also be disappointed by the film’s low budget take on the genre which includes no special effects or futuristic elements. But if you just go with the flow, Shirley Thompson Versus the Aliens is a fun and intriguing first feature for Jim Sharman, who would go on to international fame as the director of the 1975 cult film The Rocky Horror Picture Show and its unrelated follow-up Shock Treatment (1981).
Sharman came from a background in experimental theater and you can see that reflected in the film’s unconventional cinematography by David Sanderson, which utilizes jump cuts, strobing effects, a switch between black and white (for the mental ward scenes) to color (for flashbacks), tilted camera angles, solarized imagery and extreme close-ups. In one scene that anticipates the opening scene of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Shirley delivers a monologue where the focal point is just her mouth and lips.
The director also inserts archival footage at various points in clever ways to advance the plot such as footage of the 1956 Olympics and scenes of flooding and heavy rain to represent how the aliens are using severe weather as a warning sign to mankind.
In terms of conjuring up a 1950s ambiance, Shaman mostly renders this through a cheap diner set with a jukebox and a faux rockabilly soundtrack by Ralph Tyrell that features original songs in a Gene Vincent-Eddie Cochran style by Johnny O’Keefe and the Dee Jays, a genuine Australian rock ‘n’ band from the fifties that had several regional hits like “Wild One,” which is featured in the film. As for the eerie, rock opera-like theme song, it is performed by Jean Lewis and Gypsy Train.
In an interview for the RockyHorror.com website, Sharman recalled that “My first film Shirley Thompson versus the Aliens was a no-budget underground film that I made really early on. Today, it’s mainly of interest as source material for what followed. It also involved sci-fi, rock ‘n’ roll, B pictures, etc. All my films have been low budget and non-mainstream, the most interesting one is The Night the Prowler, from a story by Patrick White…Also, a TV documentary I made on the writer Patrick White shortly after his death for ABC-TV in Australia.”
Despite Sharman’s association with The Rocky Horror Picture Show, he was never able (or maybe not interested?) in using it as a springboard to a major film career. He only made five feature films including the Ozploitation mystery Summer of Secrets (1976) and the aforementioned experimental drama The Night the Prowler (1978), which is a more ambitious and complex movie than Shirley Thompson Versus the Aliens.
Strangely enough, Sharman was never been linked outside his own country with the Australian New Wave movement of the early 1970s. If anything, his fame has rested solely on The Rocky Horror Picture Show. And yet Shirley Thompson Versus the Aliens was made at the forefront of the Aussie New Wave movement, coming just after the two films that are credited with launching it – Nicholas Roeg’s Walkabout (1971) and Ted Kotcheff’s Wake in Fright (1971), both of which were directed by non-Australians (Roeg is from London, Kotcheff is from Ontario, Canada).
Sharman did make one more film – a musical short about Andy Warhol entitled Andy X in 2012 – but has mostly spent the majority of his career with stage productions and eventually became the artistic director of the acclaimed Lighthouse Theatre Company in Warrnambool, Victoria, Australia.
None of the cast members from Shirley Thompson Vesus the Aliens went on to forge high profile acting careers with the exception of Jane Harders and Helmut Bakaitis. Harders appeared in a few Aussie New Wave films such as Caddie (1976) and The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978) as well as popular Australian TV series like Spirited (2010-2011) and Doctor Doctor (2018-2019). Bakaitis, a German citizen who moved to Australia, made his feature film debut in Stork (1971), a sex comedy that became the first domestic box office hit in Australian film history, but is more famous for his iconic role as ‘The Architect’ in The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2013).
Shirley Thompson Versus the Aliens never received a theatrical release outside its own country and even in Australia the distribution was spotty. As a result, the film is rather obscure so don’t look for a Blu-ray restoration any time soon. Currently the only way you can see it is on Youtube in an inferior print that was clearly transferred from VHS with visible time code. It would be great to see this in a remastered print with English subtitles (the Aussie accents and mediocre sound quality make some of the dialogue difficult to decipher) and commentary by the director.
Other links of interest:
https://nettv4u.com/celebrity/english/movie-actress/jane-harders
https://www.rockyhorror.com/history/interviews_jimsharman.php
https://www.tabula-rasa.info/AusHorror/SummerOfSecrets.html
Cinema Sojourns 