The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976, UK)

In director Nicolas Roeg's impressionistic, hallucinatory, disjointed, non-literal sci-fi film and dramatic parable - it told about a gentle-minded alien who arrived on Earth seeking water for his drought-stricken, arid planet Anthea that was facing a catastrophe. During his experiences on the fertile planet, the complex, misunderstood alien with a superior intellect and technological knowledge, was betrayed and corrupted by the usual vices of life in the US (sexual abuse, alcohol dependency, and greed, power and materialistic wealth). The disorienting, enigmatic, and densely-surreal cult film with a non-linear narrative (and jarring cross-cutting transitions) - a perennial popular 'midnight movie' - was considered highly provocative, somewhat weird and daring for its time.

It was based upon Walter Tevis' 1963 novel, from an adapted screenplay by Paul Mayersberg. The allegorical and satirical R-rated movie included scenes of unusual, exploratory and explicit sexual encounters (with full frontal nudity of both major stars), 20 minutes of which was cut from the film's initially X-rated UK release in order to sanitize it and have it appeal to US audiences. A television remake followed: The Man Who Fell to Earth (1987). Main star David Bowie also played the same character (an extra-terrestrial alien named Ziggy Stardust) in the concert film Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1979).

• a pale, ethereal, and clairvoyant humanoid alien visitor or emissary, Thomas "Tommy" Jerome Newton's (rock star David Bowie in his feature film acting debut), arrived on Earth by splashing into a Southwestern lake in New Mexico, near the small village of Haneyville, NM (elevation 2,850); after the crash, the hooded coat Newton stumbled down a steep hillside
• he experienced frequent memories/visions of his Anthean family (his wife and two children) suffering and dying on his drought-stricken home planet, with only 300 survivors after the effects of a nuclear war; they were forced to carry scuba tank-like water-receptacle tubes strapped on their backs in order to survive
• at first, taking the appearance of a slim, red-haired Britisher with a passport and nine advanced patents for inventions (digital photography) on his home planet, he ventured to Manhattan and hired bookish patent attorney Oliver V. Farnsworth (Buck Henry) wearing thick-lensed spectacles; the otherworldly entrepreneur hired Farnsworth to establish and help in setting up a multi-million dollar, Arizona-based, global-communications technological firm (World Enterprises Corporation) due to patents (of advanced inventions from his home planet, including self-developing film); Thomas told Farnsworth: "My interest is energy - transference of energy"; soon, he was able to acquire immense wealth as a financial tycoon
• with Thomas' newly-acquired and tremendous financial and political power, his objective was to build a space vehicle and design an infrastructure that could transport water back to his home planet; however, life on Earth for Thomas was unsettling and disconcerting, and he was disoriented and in despair after contact with human society
• when he revisited New Mexico where he had initially landed, he took the alias name "Mr. Sussex"; he became nauseated and fainted in the hotel elevator to the 5th floor, and was rescued by a lonely, naive and unloved hotel cleaning lady Mary-Lou (Candy Clark) from Oklahoma; he identified himself as a "traveler"; he had frequent and often unusual playful encounters with the earthling; she taught him about many eccentric human ways, including drinking gin, watching TV, and humanoid sex
• during their turbulent relationship, he soon became corrupted by the vices and distractions of human life, including alcohol (mostly gin), guns and violence, consumerism, wealth, power, religion and sex
• disillusioned, divorced and cynical Chicago college chemistry professor Dr. Nathan Bryce (Rip Torn) was a 'father-figure' womanizer ("lecherous old man") who was bedding his young coed students Helen (Adrienne Larussa), Jill (Hilary Holland), and Elaine (Linda Hutton); his sexual couplings were intercut with a scene of Newton watching a traditional Japanese stage performance with samurai swords
• Bryce denounced his dead-end profession and profligate lifestyle to become dedicated to Newton's World Enterprises Corporation as its chief scientific consultant; he was employed as a fuel technician to help design a transportation infrastructure to take water back to Anthea; as the boss' confidante, he had always been suspicious of the unique and strange-acting Newton and wanted to learn more; through images taken by a secret X-ray camera in his small cabin on the opposite side of the lake, Bryce learned the secret of Newton's unusual physiology and his alien heritage
• Newton was preparing for his long-awaited space project - the maiden voyage of his spaceship to return water to his home planet, but it was taking longer than expected; meanwhile, the reclusive "Tommy's" bored, crippling and addicted habit was watching a bank of a dozen televisions at once; he marveled at and admired the medium of television: ("It shows you everything about life on Earth, but the true mysteries remain. Perhaps it's in the nature of television. Just waves in space"), but was also maddened by TV culture and his obsession with it, and he screamed at the TV: ("Get out of my mind, all of you! Stay where you belong! Go away! Go back where you came from")
• after Bryce had discovered Newton's true and secret form, Mary-Lou also learned that aliens secreted a semen-like goo; in a startling revelation sequence, Mary-Lou begged for Tommy to pay more attention to her and reveal himself: "They think you're a freak - or a fake. I know you're not. All you have to do is just prove it to 'em. Let 'em see you as you really are!"; Tommy complied and revealed to her his true Anthean form (pale skin, bald-haded, androgynous, cat-eyed with yellow slits, and hairless); she was so startled, panicked, frightened and repulsed by his genderlessness, that she uncontrollably peed down her leg at the horrific sight of him ("You're an alien!"

The Revelation of "Tommy's" True Planet Anthea Form to Mary-Lou

• due to major press publicity, the corrupt government and other rivals had been surveilling and monitoring him, and wanted to disrupt and stall his plans; after his lawyer and partner Farnsworth refused to sell Newton's corporation to other capitalist companies, he was ordered to be murdered (and was later thrown out of a window); the maiden voyage of the spaceship was also interrupted
• Newton was kidnapped and taken prisoner, and locked in a secluded luxury apartment by the State Department; his arrest was predicated on the fact that his corporation was destabilizing the US economy; he was brutally dehumanized, and kept passive, defenseless and unresistant with liberal doses of alcohol, causing him to become an alcoholic, and allowing his captors to medically test and examine him; one test permanently glued his contact lens disguise onto his eyeballs: ("They're stuck! I'll never get them off"); Newton's company eventually went bankrupt; Bryce switched allegiances to government agent and corporate villain Peters (Bernie Casey) who had masterminded Thomas' downfall
• after a few decades of captivity passed, Newton eventually ended up corrupted and ravaged by alcohol and despairing depression - and unable to return to his doomed home; he met up again with an equally ravaged and older-looking Mary-Lou
• during a frenzied and loveless encounter with her during his captivity, Newton drunkenly threatened Mary-Lou with a pistol and they both struggled with the weapon as sexual foreplay: ("I think you know, you know too much about me... I can do anything, now, you know? I can kill you right here on this bed. Then I could phone room service. And they'd - they'd take your body away, and then I'd have them send up another girl"); she begged for her life: ("Oh, Tommy. Tommy. I just want it to be like it was. Me, the two of us. You. You. The way you were"), and then he revealed he was fooling her - it was only a blank-firing fake gun

Mary-Lou (Candy Clark) Wrestling With a Toy Gun: Sexual Foreplay

• in the exploratory and explicit sex scene involving the mock pistol, Tommy dipped the gun's barrel into a glass of wine, licked it and drank from the glass, and then had a frenzied and loveless encounter with Mary-Lou - destroying their relationship forever; they reciprocally declared that they no longer loved each other: (Mary-Lou: "I don't love you anymore" Thomas Jerome Newton: "And I don't love you"); and later, she married Bryce

Threatening Mary-Lou With a Mock Pistol - and Love-Making

• once released from his captivity, the morose Thomas had lost his drive, energy, and enthusiasm about returning to Anthea and his family, and his circumstances no longer permitted the trip; he recorded an alien message (titled "The Visitor") on a phonograph record for the inhabitants of his planet to receive via a radio transmission
• in the final scene, Bryce (with a copy of the recorded album) met up with Thomas in an outdoor restaurant in town; the final image of Thomas was as a completely drained, eternally-trapped, broken, depressed and alone alcoholic, although he had remained youthful looking; he was inebriated in a cafe chair on an outdoor patio (with his head bowed, and his hat facing the camera), with the film's final lines after he inquired about Mary-Lou: ("I think maybe Mr. Newton has had enough, don't you?" "I think maybe he has")