BUZZSAW PERIL FOR LYRAE

This is a request by @Glory12383 for Lyrae (Dany Saval) of Disney's Moon Pilot (1962) having to the old buzz saw peril trope from the film Beach Blanket Bingo that menanced Linda Evans.

Moon Pilot is a 98 minute Technicolor science fiction satirical comedy released in 1962 by Buena Vista Distribution. Based on Robert Buckner's 1960 novel Starfire, it was directed by James Neilson and reflects Disney's interest in America's early space program during the John F. Kennedy era.

Astronaut Capt. Richmond Talbot inadvertently volunteers to make the first manned flight around the moon. He is ordered to keep the upcoming moon flight a secret, even from his family. Due to the secrecy of the mission, he is put under the watchful protection of various security agencies.

Despite all the precautions, Talbot is approached by Lyrae, a beautiful, mysterious “foreign” girl who seems to know all about the astronaut's mission and warns him about possible defects in his spacecraft. Comedy ensues when the various agencies assume she is a foreign spy.

Eventually, Lyrae reveals to Talbot that she is a friendly alien from planet Beta Lyrae and she wants to offer him a special formula that will safeguard his rocket. Enchanted by the girl, Talbot sneaks away from the FBI, NASA, and CIA agents who have been guarding him to spend more time with Lyrae. Eventually, when his rocket is launched, Talbot discovers that Lyrae has stowed away. The two sing a romantic song about Beta Lyrae while mission control expresses confusion over the bizarre transmissions.

Lithe and lovely French actress Dany Saval was born Danielle Nadine Suzanne Savalle amid very humble surroundings on January 5, 1942, in Paris. Her father, a factory laborer, had been a German POW just prior to her birth. Dany took to entertaining early and trained in dance as a young child. She grew into a beautiful young adult and subsequently found employment at the Moulin Rouge as a Can-Can girl.

A movie-struck Dany made her inauspicious, unbilled film debut in the film The Girl and the River (1958) directed by Francios Villiers. The film went on to earn a Golden Globe as "Best Foreign-Language Film." She made much more of an impression in her second dramatic film Les tricheurs (1958), written and directed by Marcel Carne. Featured as the fiancée of Pierre Brice, this story of alienated youth has often been described as the Gallic answer to Rebel Without a Cause (1955).

The petite, fizzy blonde immediately moved into second lead femme roles with such films as the social drama Asphalte (1959) and the action thriller Atomic Agent (1959), before earning her first co-starring role in the Francois Villiers directed film La verte moisson (1959) with Dany, Jacques Perrin, Francis Lemonnier and Claude Brasseur as student resisters taking on the Nazis. She continued to rise in French movie stature with the films La Dragee Haute Pierrot la Tendresse Les Portes Claquent (1960) (her first top-billed role), Spotlight on a Murderer (1961), Le Puits Aux Verites (1961) (her first top-billed role), Le Puits aux trois verites (1961) (Three Faces of Sin),The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), and Tales of Paris (1962).

By sheer happenstance, a Disney talent scout happened to glance at a French magazine cover gracing Dany's wide-set eyed beauty and had her screen-tested. Earning a limited contract, she was introduced to American film audiences in the modestly delightful Disney sci-fi comedy Moon Pilot (1962) starring handsome Tom Tryon as an astronaut who comes upon a beautiful space alien (Dany) first thought a Russian spy. The film was a box-office disappointment, however, and Dany returned immediately to France, enhancing a variety of film genres including The Devil and the Ten Commandents (1962), Coment Reussir en Amour (1962), Du Mouron Pour Les Petits Oiseaux (1963), Sweet Skin (1963), Web of Fear (1964), Cherchez L'idole (1964), A Funny Boss (1964), Jaloux Comme un Tigre (1964) and Moi et les Hommes de 40 Ans (1965).

Dany did not return to American filming until the mid-1960's when she was cast as perky Jacqueline (of Air France), one of three gorgeous airline stewardesses (the others being the equally gorgeous Christiane Schmidtmer (Lufthansa) and Suzanna Leigh (British United) being unwittingly juggled around by capricious gigolo Tony Curtis in the frantic bedroom slapstick comedy Boeing, Boeing (1965), based on the 1960 French play. Starring with Curtis is Jerry Lewis as a visiting friend who takes advantage of the situation, and it features wonderfully wry Thelma Ritter as Tony's beleaguered housekeeper. The film, despite its potential, received mixed reviews and earned a middling box office.

Briefly married to non-professional Roger Chaland, Dany's second husband was the three-time Oscar-winning French composer and conductor Maurice Jarre, best known for his film collaboration with epic filmmaker David Lean in such film masterpieces as Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965) and A Passage to India (1984). The couple had one daughter, Stéfanie, and Dana semi-retired for a time to focus on being a wife and mother. The marriage, however, was very short-lived, and lasted but a couple of years.

In the 1970's Dany returned to acting, focusing on French TV but including a few films from time to time as in the slapstick "spagetti western" It Can Be Done Amigo (1972) with Bud Spancer and Jack Palance; the action comedy Animal (1977); the musical comedy La Vie Parisienne (1977); and the non-musical comedies Ciao, Les Mecs (1979), Inspector Blunder (1980), Do You Want a Nobel Baby? (1980) and Signe Furax (1981). Long married (since 1972) to her third husband, actor/writer/producer Michel Druckerr, Dany retired in 1987 to live quietly in Paris.