'Of', not 'From', outer space

I've sent in a lot of corrections and updates, too, as well as many goofs and trivia entries. How many, I don't really know. But back in '07 I probably wasn't yet much into doing that.

My proudest correction concerned the 1942 Japanese war film that translates into English as The War at Sea From Hawaii to Malaya. In Japanese, it's transliterated Hawai Mare oki kaisen, with all words other than proper names in lower case, not capitalized. Going onto the site, I noticed they had "Mare" (the accusative case for the Japanese name for Malaya) lower cased ("mare"). I sent in a correction pointing out it's the name of a country, and sure enough, in short order it was capitalized. And I barely knew what I was talking about!

Some friends on these boards have told me I should write reviews for some of the films and post them as User Reviews instead of putting them up on the boards, which is my normal practice whenever I do it. But I suppose I've never had the ambition to do so (or don't want to bump another user off). Maybe one day. I envy you your concerted reviewing efforts!

"Oh, most manly Luther Blair, is thou giving me a proposition?"

"That's preposition, baby, preposition. We went through all this last night when you kept saying you wanted to be 'from' top!"

"Oh, Luther Blair, thy ways are as wise as thy grammar. And I loved thee as Valentino!"

I've wondered whether having two titles might not have been the case with this film. The only thing that makes me skeptical is that the title on the US print (or what I assume to be the US print -- no Eros credit) is clearly an original imprint, that is, it hasn't been clumsily substituted for a different title.

By contrast, the American titles for other contemporary British sci-fi films released under different titles in the US -- such as Behemoth the Sea Monster/The Giant Behemoth, The Strange World of Planet X/Cosmic Monsters, The Trollenberg Terror/The Crawling Eye -- are plainly substituted onto those films. It's hard to believe such a problem wouldn't have been as, if not more, obvious on such a bottom-budget, badly made film as Fire Maidens. Not to mention that "From" clearly makes no sense in the context of the film's plot, whereas "Of" is obviously correct; perhaps I credit the British too much with not being capable of such an obvious mistake.

The poster looked great -- thanks for the link. But even posters aren't necessarily conclusive. (Cosmic Monsters, above, was advertised in America under the poster title Cosmic Monster, singular.) I'd love to see a UK print of this terrible (and priceless) film. But unfortunately it's not out on DVD in Britain, and as far as I know only two small companies in the US even offer it on DVD-R...under the title "Of". Who's "confirmed" that the actual on-screen title of the UK film said "From"? I'm not doubting it, but it'd be nice to have positive evidence.

Of course, if the original title was indeed "From", it'd be yet one more screw-up in this film overflowing with screw-ups.

Hey, thanks for the link, Emeglis. Fun article. I was glad it cited the chatter about product placements. I started a thread here about that and I'm happy to know I've been vindicated!

Anyway, I've long suspected that the title was "From" in the U.K. and "Of" in the U.S. I was interested in seeing the poster art because while the one shown says "Of" the only version I've ever seen reads "From". The screen savers the emailer from Britain posted, with the different credits (including "From"), prove that both titles exist, and that "From" must have been the British title. (His comments about the different cast list and other credits changes between the British and American versions reminds me of the differences in the credit sequences of Behemoth the Sea Monster and The Giant Behemoth.)

I've looked for a U.K. DVD and never even found that one existed. I'm glad that guy who emailed from Britain had one.

I was interested in the reviewer's comment that even Bill Warren hadn't solved the title mystery. In fact, in his book "Keep Watching the Skies", Warren insists the title is "From". It obviously never occurred to him that there might be two different titles out there, very common (even the norm) with films crossing the Atlantic. Much as I like that book, it's shot through with errors -- probably 75% of the entries contain some mistake.

Also, the reviewer makes a couple of mistakes himself about FMOOS. He says the shots of the spaceship in flight through space are stock shots but doesn't cite the source; in fact, they were cropped from King Dinosaur. On the other hand, he says that the scenes of the V-2 flying sideways came from King Dinosaur, where in fact those shots originated in Lost Continent. He also mistakenly says that the "rival" Fire Maiden played by Jacqueline Curtiss has her cap set for the astronaut played by Paul Carpenter; in fact, she also wants the unpalatable Anthony Dexter, who's been tagged by Susan Shaw -- the reason why Jacqueline tries to have Susan sacrificed (and winds up killed by The Creature herself -- justice!).

These nits aside, the article was neat and helps clear up this enduring mystery. Thanks again!

The page heading depends on your personal settings. You can have it set for original titles, or US or UK or whatever titles, or foreign-language titles, etc. My setting reads "Of". What country you're in should make no difference.

Yes, we've long since confirmed that this film had two different titles -- "From" in the UK and "Of" in the US. The two DVD releases of this movie in the US both have "Of". So either is correct -- in so far as the title goes.

Of course, "From" makes absolutely no sense. The Fire Maidens haven't come from outer space; they're in outer space; it's the crew that has come "from" somewhere (Earth). But I suppose the illogical British title is more in keeping with the film's overall, albeit endearing, stupidity.