Joseph Tomelty

Devil Girl from Mars

Nyah, a female commander from Mars heads for London in her flying saucer. She is part of the advanced alien team looking for Earth men to replace the declining male population on her world, the result of a "devastating war between the sexes". Because of damage to her craft, caused when entering the Earth's atmosphere, and an apparent crash with an airliner, she is forced to land in the remote Scottish moors. She is armed with a raygun that can paralyse or kill, and is accompanied by a tall, menacing robot named Chani. Professor Arnold Hennessey, an astrophysicist, accompanied by journalist Michael Carter, is sent by the British government to investigate the effects of the crash, believed to be caused by a meteorite. The pair come to the Bonnie Charlie, a remote inn run by Mr and Mrs Jamieson in the depths of the Scottish Highlands. At the bar they meet Ellen Prestwick, a fashion model who came to the Bonnie Charlie to escape an affair with a married man. She quickly forms a romantic liaison with Carter. Meanwhile, escaped convict Robert Justin (under the alias Albert Simpson), convicted for accidentally killing his wife, comes to the inn to reunite with barmaid Doris, with whom he is in love. Nyah happens across the inn, incinerates the Jamieson's handyman David, and enters the bar. When she finds no-one willing to come with her to Mars, she responds with intimidation, trapping the guests and staff within an invisible wall and turning Chani loose to vaporise much of the manor’s grounds. Discovering Justin and Tommy, the Jamieson's young nephew, hiding in the grounds, Nyah kidnaps Tommy as a possible male specimen, and sends Justin back to the inn under some manner of mind control. Nyah then brings Professor Hennessy aboard her spaceship to view the technological achievements of Martian civilisation, including the ship's atomic power source. In exchange for Tommy, Carter volunteers to go to Mars with Nyah. Realising that the only road to victory over Nyah means trickery, Hennessy suggests Carter sabotage the ship's power source after take off. However Carter attempts a double cross before boarding the ship, snatching Nyah's controller for Chani, but this attempt is thwarted by Nyah's mind control powers. Carter is released by Nyah, and they both return to the bar, where she announces that she will destroy the inn and kill everyone within when she leaves for London. However she allows for one man to go with her in order to escape death. The men draw lots and Carter wins the draw, still hoping to enact Hennessy's plan to destroy the ship. At the last minute, Justin, alone at the bar and now free from mind control when Nyah returns, offers to go with her of his own free will. After take-off he successfully sabotages Nyah's ship, sacrificing himself to save the men of Earth, and atoning for the death of his wife, and allowing the survivors to celebrate their escape with a drink at the bar.