Returning to our ongoing series.
It Came from Outer Space is a 1953 film directed by Jack Arnold (who did some similar movies in the same era) and based on a story treatment by Ray Bradbury (not a published short story). Despite the poster above, the DVD I watched was in black and white, and there was no 3-D effect (I wonder how they did a 3-D effect in black and white).
This film has similarities with others skiffy films of its era, yet it has certain charms, and it ends much more positively that most of those others.
Here’s the Wikipedia entry for this film.
Summary of plot:
- John Putnam, an amateur astronomer and magazine article writer living in a small house in Sand Rock AZ, is looking at the stars with his girlfriend/fiancee Ellen Fields when they see a huge meteorite streak by overhead.
- Next day a copter takes them to the landing site, a huge crater. Climbing down, he sees something kind of ship, perhaps, half-buried, with a hatch that opens, exposing a creature with a single eye. The hatch closes, and something triggers a landslide into the crater. Putnam escapes, but the ship is buried.
- Meanwhile we see POV shots from one of the aliens — a fish-eye lens view of the desert surroundings — and the glitter it leaves as a trail. Later, as Putnam and girlfriend drive back home, the monster appears in the road a blocks their car. Putnam has a gun, and the car as a spotlight by the review mirror, but they see nothing.
- Putnam insists he saw something, perhaps even life, but no one believes him, not the reporters who show up the next day, not even his astronomer friend Dr. Snell.
- Driving down the highway, they meet two linemen, asking if they’ve seen or heard anything. No, but yes: Putnam climbs their ladder to hear some weird hum.
- The two linemen, George and Frank, encounter the monster as it blocks the highway and then attacks them. On a hunch, Putnam drives back to find their truck abandoned. George is missing then appears, zombielike; later the same happens to Frank.
- Putnam drives to town and appeals the sheriff. They drive out the to the site where the trucks was, and find nothing [[ a standard sf/f ploy of someone seeing something fantastic and then having all evidence disappear ]].
- Putnam encounters the linemen back in town, but they act like zombies, asking him to leave them alone, keep away, give us time, your friends (the real Frank and George) are alive.
- And so on. Putnam pleads with the sheriff; two women claim their husbands have disappeared; electrical equipment is being stolen; Dr. Snell goes missing.
- Putnam gathers that the aliens crashed on Earth accidentally and just want time to repair their ship. They’re doing so by impersonating the humans they encounter so they can go into town to get supplies. They just need time. Putnam manages to hold off the posse who would attack the ship in the crater.
- A connection to the crater is found in a nearby mine; Ellen goes into it, determined to try to help, and is caught herself. As is Putnam, who sees a zombie version of himself. Insisting he see the alien, he sees a huge blob-like creature with a single eye. They’ve conquered space, it claims, in 1000 years, and can’t let their work fall into the wrong hands. Putnam makes a deal to stop the posse if the real people are set free.
- Putnam sets dynamite in the mind to block that entrance. It goes off, and soon thereafter the ship rises up out of the crater and streaks away into the sky.
- Reflecting, Putnam tells his girlfriend that this wasn’t the right time, but– they’ll be back.
Comments and quibbles
- The plot here is fairly schematic, with a difference at the end. Hero sees aliens; evidence isn’t to be found; no one believes him. Until strange things start to happen. In this case, hero contacts aliens and understands their purpose, which is relatively noble and nonthreatening, and holds off the posse of townspeople ready to kill them. There’s no bringing in the military in their tanks, as in other skiffy flix of this era. This optimistic ending is due to Ray Bradbury, who wrote an elaborate treatment for the film and insisted on this ending.
- There are some standard sf cliches: the theremin music, the alien as a hideous blob.
- A couple distinctive effects are the POV shots of the alien through a fish-eye lens. And, the glitter showing its path.
- This is one of a group of 1950s science fiction movies I think of as “Desert Skiffy Flix,” Hollywood pictures that were filmed out in the Mojave Desert, which is only an hour two north of Hollywood. The proximate location might also explain the prevalence of Western movies and TV shows in the ’40s and into the ’60s. And of course numerous TV shows make the trek to film episodes in the desert: Trek, Twilight Zone, Mission: Impossible.
- There are a lot of Joshua Trees in the areas where this was filmed. I grew up in the high desert town of Apple Valley, which is why these movies (and TV shows filmed out in the desert) resonate with me. (I’ll compile them sometime.) I had thought such trees were confined to parts of the Mojave Desert, though the movie claims to be set in Arizona. But Wikipedia indicates that their range does extend into Arizona.
- This was the era when professional astronomers, even linemen, wore loose, baggy suits.
- It’s curious that since girlfriend Ellen Fields isn’t married to him yet, she’s still there at midnight in the first scene when they go out to look at the stars — and see the meteor.
- It’s also curious in that first scene that Ellen chats about whether their astrology signs are compatible. This is nonsense to an astronomer. Was this an error in the script? Or did the producers think no one in the audience would know or care?
- Many of the scenes are filmed day-for-night, i.e. filmed during the daytime and then manipulated in the studio to look darker. But it’s not always obvious, so the chronology of even is sometimes confusing.
- It’s notable that this astronomer carries a pistol around with him.
- I was about to note that, unusually for this era, no one smoked, until about half way through the sheriff lights up.
- The theme of aliens replacing ordinary people with duplicates was not uncommon in this communist scare era, and appeared both in Invaders from Mars (up next) and the more famous Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
