Ordeals of ‘The Alien’

In 1967, at the height of his powers, Satyajit Ray was invited to Hollywood to discuss a science fiction project which Columbia was very keen to back. 

‘The Alien’ was inspired by one of his earliest stories - entitled ‘Bankubabur Bandhu’(‘Banku Babu’s Friend’) - written & illustrated in 1962 for the children’s magazine Sandesh, in which a benign alien creature descended on a forest near an insignificant village in Bengal makes contact with one one of its humblest resident, Banku Babu.



Neither the alien’s character nor that of his friend was much developed or fully formed; on Arthur C. Clarke’s (2001:A Space Odyssey fame) recommendation, Ray constructed a full screenplay out of the bare-bones version of the story & took it to Hollywood.

One can respect the Hollywood executive circa 1968 who showed interest in it as the moon landing was still a year away at the time, Ridley Scott was making ad films & George Lucas was still a student at UCLA.

Top Hollywood stars including Peter Sellers & Steve McQueen were suggested at one point by Columbia to play the American character in Ray’s film. Much to the dismay of Mr Ray, the project kept delaying & he eventually lost interest disillusioned by the Hollywood experience, as revealed in one of his correspondence with Mr Clarke.

For the next decade or so, Ray was variously encouraged to revive the project but it was not until the release of Steven Speilberg’s E.T. in 1982 which began life as a Columbia project, that he lost all hope. Ray could understand the success of Speilberg’s alien though he found E.T. ‘a bit corny at times.’

Arthur C. Clarke phoned Ray in January 1983 exclaiming the striking similarities between Ray’s script of ‘The Alien’ & E.T. further suggesting to write politely to Speilberg & point out the resemblances. Although Ray was firmly of the view that ‘E.T. would not have been possible without the script of ‘The Alien’ being available throughout America in mimeographed copies.’

Ray didn’t seem in a particularly ‘vindictive’ mood to press charges against Speilberg besides he could easily deny it & ended it by saying that Speilberg is a good director & has made good films.

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