Teenagers from Outer Space (1959 Independent Sci-Fi Cult film)

The film was produced, written, and directed by Tom Graeff and stars David Love, Dawn Bender, Bryan Grant, Harvey B. Dunn, Tom Graeff, and King Moody. Teenagers from Outer Space was distributed theatrically by Warner Bros. on a double feature with Gigantis the Fire Monster, the English-dubbed version of the 1955 Japanese giant monster film Godzilla Raids Again.

In the film, a young alien named Derek abandons his crew to search for a new life on Earth, while one of his crewmates is sent to find him as they attempt to eradicate human life in order to farm Earth with giant lobster-like livestock they call Gargons.

Plot
A flying saucer arrives on Earth while searching for planets suitable to raise "Gargons", a lobster-like but air-breathing monster that is a reserve food supply on their home planet. Crewman Thor shows his alien contempt for Earth's creatures, by needlessly vaporizing a dog named Sparky with a disintegrator ray gun.

Another crew member by the name of Derek, discovers an inscription on Sparky's dog tag and fears the Gargons might destroy Earth's native inhabitants. This makes the other aliens scoff at the thought. Being members of the "supreme race", they disdain "foreign beings", no matter how intelligent; they pride themselves that "families" and "friendships" are forbidden on their world. Derek reveals an ancient book and turns out to be a member of an underground rebellion, that commemorates the more humane periods of their world's history, before they became mechanized slaves.

Cast
David Love as Derek
Dawn Bender as Betty Morgan
Bryan Grant as Thor
Harvey B. Dunn as Gramps Morgan
Tom Graeff (billed as Tom Lockyear) as Joe Rogers
King Moody as Spacecraft Captain
Ralph Lowe as Morro, Spaceship Crew
Bill DeLand as Sol, Spaceship Crew
Billy Bridges as Motorist picking up Thor
Sonia Torgeson as Alice Woodward
Jim MacGeorge as Detective Mac
Frederick Welch as Dr. C.R. Brandt, MD
Helen Sage as Nurse Morse
Gene Sterling as The Alien Leader
Sol Resnick as the Junior Astronomer
Don Chambers as the Senior Astronomer
Carl Dickensen as Gas Station Attendant
Ursula Hansen as Hilda, Simpson's Secretary
James Conklin as Professor Simpson

Production
Teenagers from Outer Space was filmed on location in and around Hollywood, California, in the fall of 1956 and winter of 1957. With a number of tell-tale landmarks like Bronson Canyon in Griffith Park and Hollywood High School, which gives away the film's otherwise generic location. One notable aspect of the film is that it was largely the work of a single person, Tom Graeff, who, in addition to playing the role of reporter Joe Rogers, wrote, directed, edited, and produced the film, on which he also provided cinematography, special effects, and music coordination. Producers Bryan and Ursula Pearson ("Thor" and "Hilda") and Gene Sterling ("The Leader") provided the film's $14,000 budget, which was less than shoestring even by the standards of the day.

Cost-effective measures
According to Bryan Pearson, the crew employed many guerrilla tactics in order to cut costs. Director Tom Graeff secured for free the location used for Betty Morgan's house by posing as a UCLA student (which he had attended and graduated from 5 years earlier). The older woman who owned the house even let the crew use her electricity to power their equipment.

Other cost-cutting measures did not work as well: The aliens' costumes were simple flight suits clearly decorated with masking tape, dress shoes covered in socks, and surplus Air Force flight helmets. The use of stock footage, in lieu of real special effects and pre-Spielbergian "looking" shots that replaced actual visuals of the invading alien spaceships, seriously undercut the film's ending. Props included a single-bolted-joint skeleton re-used for every dead body seen on screen, a multi-channel sound mixer that was not camouflaged (clearly bearing the label "Multichannel Mixer MCM-2") as a piece of alien equipment, and a dime store Hubley's "Atomic Disintegrator" toy as the aliens' disintegrator ray gun.

Release and legacy
In June 1958 Bryan Pearson, who invested $5,000 in the production with his wife Ursula, took Graeff to court in order to gain back the original investment and a percentage of any profits. The Pearsons had learned that Graeff had allegedly sold the film (originally titled The Boy From Out of This World),[9] which did not happen until early 1959. He heard nothing more on their investment or a percentage of profits to which they were entitled. The legal dispute dragged on for a year. Pearson received his $5,000 investment, but the judge ruled there was no profit to share.