THE BAMBOO SAUCER: 1967 Test pilot Fred Norwood is canned for reporting the UFO that buzzed his F-104. His obsession with the event lands him in the Washington D.C. office of Dan Duryea.
Duryea needs a pilot for the team he is assembling to study and capture a flying saucer. Such a saucer is being hidden, somehow, in an abandoned Catholic mission in Red China. Fred and Duryea parachute in with two scientists and rendesvous with Sam the spy. Sam leads the team hiking.
	They stumble into a Russian party with the same mission, and form a shakey coalition to avoid detection by Chinese troops. Sam Guides them all to the saucer where Comrade Dubrovsky, the Russian's jut-jawed leader, proposes a truce to speed the research.
Duryea grudgingly agrees that only he and Dubrovsky will remain armed, and the others will work together as quickly as possible. One of the U.S. scientists had the forsight to pack an electric razor that buzzes at the exact frequency that open the saucer's hatch.
	Fred climbs aboard with Anna, the Russian electronics expert. The interior features were designed for humanoid occupants, two of which were found dead and burned by the peasants who discovered the saucer. Anna activates the ship's magnetic drive, and it begins to levitate indoors!
Bi-folding landing legs tuck up neatly, and things get tense as Anna and Fred guess which switch is OFF. They correctly guess what to do, land, and exit the craft. Later, all wake to the drone of the powered- up saucer. Dubrovsky ordered one of his people to try to fly the saucer to Moscow, alone!
	Again the ship lands, and the Russian skyjacker falls out, dead. A little sweet-talk gets the truce going again, and Fred is all over Anna while they are alone, learning to fly the ship. It takes at least two to control the drive and keep it from killing the passengers. Sam warns of Chinese patrols.
When Dubrovsky again tries to commandeer the saucer, a bloodless shootout betrays their position. While Fred, Anna, and the guy with the razor prepare to take off, the others repel the first wave of Chinese attackers with small arms and grenades.
	Surrounded and hoplessly out- numbered, characters are picked off one by one. Finally, the Eagle and the Bear stand back to back, plugging away at the common enemy, buying time with their lives! Only the three in the saucer get out alive as the Chinese storm in.
Troops rush in to see the saucer smash its way through the (presumably bamboo) roof of the building. But, the lucky trio cannot gain control of the craft. The saucer takes them sightseeing until it starts getting dangerously close to Saturn. To land or crash...?
	Just as doom seems certain, Anna's computations reveal the key to setting the controls. They reverse course for Earth, and as they enter the atmosphere, they decide to land at the U.N. Headquarters in Geneva so everyone can share their discovery. THE END

This film was released in 1967, but most of it feels like a 50's production. Overall, the show is tremendously entertaining, but the cold war stereotypes and simple storyline just do not seem to belong to the same year Planet Of The Apes came out. The screenplay was based on a story by John Fulton and Alford "Rip" Van Ronkel. Van Ronkel co-wrote the screenplay for Destination Moon with Robert Heinlein and James O'Hanlon in 1949. This tends to indicate that the story Bamboo Saucer was based on had been around for a while, perhaps explaining the McCarthy Era feeling that comes across. Still, it works.

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