“The Night of the Flying Pie Plate” is every bit as ridiculous as “The Night of the Returning Dead’ was spooky, yet it works. Chalk it up the two factors. First, the scam being pulled does not have the obvious resolution. Second, Jim and Artie are on the ball the entire time, so no one’s intelligence is insulted by the outlandish plot.What is that outlandish plot? While escorting a million dollar gold ship through Arizona, Jim witnesses a UFO crash. The aliens inside are beautiful green women from Venus. Their ship is out of fuel. You will never guess what they use for gas. Yep--gold. They have plenty of jewels worthless to them, but invaluable to us Earthlings to trade for it. Unfortunately, it is government property.
At no point does the story try to pass this scenario off as anything but a scam. The conflict is discovering who is behind it. Is it the bank president, a traveling hellfire and brimstone traveling preacher, or any number of thugs I town? It turns out to be all of them. One might think it is a cop out the red herrings are not red herrings, but, really, how often do you see that happen?
Mot of the fun of “The Night of the Flying Pie Plate” is not the scam, anyway. It is a 1960’s television series loading up an episode with 1950’s flying saucer cliché and setting it I the 1870’s. The “Venusian” girls are hot, too:
Fun, but goofy.Rating: *** (out of 5)
