Glitterball, The
Entry updated 11 May 2026. Tagged: Film.
UK film (1977). Children's Film Foundation, Mark Forstater Productions Ltd. Directed by Harley Cokliss. Written by Michael Abrams, Harley Cokliss and Howard Thompson. Cast includes Ben Buckton, Barry Jackson, Keith Jayne, Ron Pember and Marjorie Yates. 55 minutes. Colour.
The Glitterball is a tiny Alien sphere, which crashes to Earth in a small house in the country, near an army base. Two boys, Max (Buckton) and Pete (Jayne) befriend and protect it, after it causes chaos among the readings on the army's equipment at the base where Max's father works, eats through huge amounts of food to gain energy, and catches the attention of petty thief "Filthy" Potter (Pember) who thinks he can make a fortune from it. With the military and Potter attempting to capture it, the alien mothership arrives, from which many more glitterballs emerge, rescuing the stranded one. They thank the boys for their help, and shoot off into space before the army can see them, leading most of the adults to believe that the boys have made the story up, and that Potter is going mad.
This extremely charming and entertaining film was one of the most popular CFF titles, no doubt partly helped by its release coinciding with the wave of popularity of Star Wars (1977). The excellent child actors help give the usual formula of adventure and broad comedy a realistic grounding, and the low budget but enjoyable stop-motion effects work very well. It also has one of the CFF's best electronic scores, partly by Malcolm Clarke of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
The novelization is The Glitterball (1979) by Howard Thompson, who co-wrote the script and also co-scripted other CFF films. [CWa]
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