5 Little Men In A Flying Saucer

Finding and Watching 5 Little Men In A Flying Saucer in 2024

Most people looking up this film are confused because they can't find it anywhere legal. It's not on Netflix, not on Hulu, not on Prime Video. The 1955 British sci-fi B-movie directed by Val Guest has been stuck in a weird limbo for decades. The American International Pictures version that most people know was heavily edited from the original British cut, and the rights situation is a mess. I spent about three weeks tracking down where this thing actually exists in usable quality, so you don't have to. There are essentially two versions of this film floating around. The British original is called Five Little Men in a Spaceship and runs about 80 minutes. The American release, which changed the title and re-cut it down to roughly 73 minutes, removed some of the more absurd sequences. Both are weird in different ways. The original has more of the dry British humor that the American cut trimmed out. If you're a film historian, watch the British version. If you just want the campy late-night TV experience, the AIP cut is what everyone remembers. The plot involves five children who accidentally beam aboard an alien spaceship. They land in England near a secret RAF base. The military tries to figure out what's going on while the kids explore the ship. It's charming in a thoroughly unpretentious way. The alien technology looks like it was built from spare parts in a basement, which is honestly kind of endearing. The special effects are whatever the crew could rig from model kits and rear projection at the time. It's not supposed to impress you on that level.

I ran into a real problem when trying to compile a working list of sources. Most streaming databases still list this under the American title, but the actual film available on various platforms varies wildly in quality and version. One UK streaming service I tried had the AIP cut but it was a DVD rip in 480p with the wrong aspect ratio stretched to widescreen. Total waste of time. Another site claimed to have the British version but it turned out to be the same AIP edit with different cover art. You have to verify the runtime before committing to anything. The British cut is eight minutes longer. That's your first check. For actually getting your hands on it, your best bet right now is probably checking the Criterion Collection or BFI releases if they come up in rental. Sometimes Amazon Prime has it available for rent as a standalone title rather than through their subscription library. That usually costs around $3.99 for a 48-hour window. Not great value but at least the quality is decent. The YouTube Movies section sometimes has it too, though again verify which version you're getting before paying.

What Makes This Film Worth Actually Seeking Out

It's not a cinematic masterpiece. Nobody is claiming that. But it's a genuine time capsule of mid-century British filmmaking at the bottom rung of the budget ladder. The children in the cast are genuinely good. The alien set design by Bernard Robinson has a certain charm that you can't fake. And the script actually has some clever moments buried under the nonsense. The scene where the RAF base commander tries to maintain military protocol while dealing with children who just materialized in his hangar is genuinely funny without trying to be. One thing most guides don't mention: this film exists in a weird transitional period in British cinema. It was made right before the Hammer Horror wave really took off, and you can see how the same production infrastructure was being used for these low-budget genre pictures. The crew rotating between this and more famous Hammer productions is notable. If you're studying the era, this matters more than the film itself. The production company, British Lion Films, was struggling financially at the time. They made this to fill a scheduling slot, not because anyone thought it would be significant. That context changes how you view it entirely. Here's something nobody tells you about finding copies. The original negative was reportedly lost or damaged sometime in the 1970s. Every existing version comes from telecine transfers of whatever prints survived in various archives. That means no remastered 4K version is coming. The best you're going to get is a decent 1080p scan from a surviving print, and those are rare. The versions floating around online from torrent sites are usually from much older transfers. Don't bother with anything below 720p unless you're just curious. It looks significantly worse than you'd expect from a black and white film from this era.

The soundtrack is also worth noting if you care about that sort of thing. Edmund Grice composed a serviceable score that was recycled from other British Lion productions. He reused his own themes throughout their catalog in the mid-fifties. If you hear something that sounds familiar from another film, that's why. Not plagiarism, just budget economy. Again, this is the reality of low-budget British production at the time and it's not a criticism.

Where to Actually Watch It Right Now

I'll keep this current as of mid-2024. Check MUBI first. They occasionally have it in their rotation. Then the BFI Player if you have a subscription. Amazon Prime Video for rent. YouTube Movies and Google Play for rent. That's basically the list of legitimate sources. Everything else is either the wrong version, terrible quality, or copyright infringement. The Tubi app sometimes has it free with ads, but the version they carry has been problematic. I've seen both the AIP cut and the British version show up on Tubi on different devices, and the audio sync was off by several seconds in my experience. If you find it there, test it with a known timestamp before committing to a full viewing. A quick scene check in the first ten minutes will tell you immediately if the sync is wrong. Physical media is another option if you're patient. There are DVD releases from various distributors. The British blu-ray from Arrow Video came out a few years back and is considered the definitive edition. It includes the restored British cut and some supplementary material. It's out of print but shows up on eBay occasionally. Don't pay more than twenty dollars for it unless you're a completist. The transfer is good but not spectacular.

The Cultural Aftermath Nobody Talks About

This film got a bizarre second life because of a coincidental similarity to events that happened years later. When the Soviet satellite Sputnik launched in 1957, some newspapers ran stories connecting the imagery from this movie to actual space technology. It generated a small amount of press coverage at the time that most people don't know about. The film itself didn't predict anything, but the public appetite for space stories was clearly building, and this was one of the early British entries in that wave. There's also a strange connection to the UFO phenomenon of the late fifties. The film predates the modern UFO boom but was retroactively lumped into that cultural moment. Some UFO researchers cited it as evidence of public fascination with extraterrestrial visitation, which is kind of ridiculous when you think about it. It's a children's adventure picture, not a documentary. But the confusion persisted for decades in certain circles. If you end up watching this and wondering why it feels like nothing else from that period, that's probably because it genuinely isn't comparable to most American B-movies of the same era. The British approach to low-budget genre pictures was fundamentally different. Less concern with pacing, more willingness to let scenes breathe, and a complete absence of the moral panic framing that American films of the time typically included. The children in this movie are never lectured about the dangers of curiosity or technology. They're just allowed to be kids in a weird situation. That alone makes it worth a viewing if you're studying the period.