Thirsty silver marbles: the movie!

October 9, 2006 2:34 PM

Can someone help me identify a movie I saw as a kid, featuring... thirsty silver marbles? There's

Thrown in a bowl of milk, these marbles would absorb the liquid up to the last drop.
I also remember people throwing up various things as soon as they tried to speak... although I am not sure this was in the same film!
This SiFi movie has haunted me for the last 20 years... no wonder why!

posted by rom1 to Media & Arts (9 answers total)

People throwing up as they talk, or at least heads devouring and regurgitating each other, sounds like the short stop-motion animated film by Jan Svankmajer, Dimensions of Dialogue. No actual dialogue. Surreal and disturbing. Sound like the kind of thing?
posted by Hogshead at 4:17 PM on October 9, 2006

Phantasm?

It came out in 1979 and it has silver balls. I don't remember their beverage of choice, though.
posted by ill3 at 4:47 PM on October 9, 2006

That would be blood, ill3.
posted by Rash at 4:51 PM on October 9, 2006

I think I remember the film you are talking about, although I do not know the name. I think it was more or a Saturday afternoon kids movie than the bloodthirsty bladed ball from Phantasm.

The one I remember had a small group of kids followed by a dog trying to solve some "mystery" and the balls would appear after someone left the scene or just before they arrived. The balls were stop-action but not animated.

It may have been part of series, or more likely a segment of the local cheesy matinee program.
posted by Yorrick at 6:00 PM on October 9, 2006

Like Yorrick, I think I remember a children's movie with stop-motion silver marbles. I do remember a scene where the marbles "drank" from a beverage glass. I know I saw this movie at my neighborhood library branch in Seattle, probably around 1985–90.

Unfortunately, I remember no other details of the movie, and I failed to find anything relevant on the web.
posted by mbrubeck at 7:39 PM on October 9, 2006

Best answer: I think the movie you're thinking about may be The Glitterball. The basic plot is ET (though it predates it); the silver sphere is an alien lost on earth, two children protect it from evil adult scientist/military types and in the end the mothership comes for it and bunches of glitterballs come to the rescue. I don't remember there being anything about 30 specifically or vomiting, but that milk thing sounds familiar to me. This was an English film.
posted by nanojath at 9:54 PM on October 9, 2006

Available on ebay.
posted by Yorrick at 9:04 AM on October 10, 2006

Awesome! Here's some background information and video clips.
posted by mbrubeck at 5:42 PM on October 10, 2006

...THIRSTY silver marbles. As opposed to thirty silver marbles, which is how I first read it. Thank god my confusion on that point is now ended.

There's something about this film... my brother and I were both obsessed with it as youths (I was about 6 when it came out but I'm pretty sure I saw it as some kind of after school special type deal with I was more like 10 or 12...) I know if I mention this thread to him he will immediately know what I'm talking about. I can't believe I was able to find the title by googling though (I think I'm becoming some kind of zen master, I should save these search strings, they're like koans).
posted by nanojath at 9:16 PM on October 10, 2006