It Came From Outer Space (1953)
Based on a story by Ray Bradbury, this black and white classic was originally released in 3D. I saw this on TV as a child and it stuck with me as being scary. A spaceship crashes in the desert. John Putnam smokes a pipe and his fiancée Ellen lurks. They see the incessantly garish ship crash whilst stargazing. Aliens escape the ship leaving glitter trails behind them and they view the world through a fish eye lens. Its mind trippy even if the ‘aliens’ look like mildly ambulatory waxworks.
Putnam and Ellen face down the prerequisite ostentatiously sceptical locals. Putnam talks in florid, lofty rhetoric as Ellen is chaste, ineffective, leaden, tired and boring. The acting is dreadfully theatrical. Putnam has disquiet about the aliens. Various grubby locals are touchier than landmines and call him a crackpot. Putnam is intensely serious in response and is carped at some more by bull-roaring ungallant locals who wholeheartedly dispute his alien theory.
Are the alien’s heralds of the end of the human race? Well, no. Ellen is all unappreciative toadyism, ingratiation and screaming. This is all foggy and shadowy looking. Aliens with protuberances lurk. Antique looking technology is displayed. Putnam wallows in self pity and self reproach due to the negative tenor. The townsfolk are predominately against him, seeing him as the weirdo in the desert. Also none too subtly morally reprehensible reporters mock him. But Putnam has endurance and resilience! He makes a bizarre speech, listens to odd noises and acts like the daring kook people think he is.
The aliens duplicate various brycreemed men and screaming women. Putnam watches for the monster and finds it, sort of. The aliens monotone, Putnam stands watch and stamps out the monster. To think I once dreaded this film. But it is sadly meandering and it lurches in surly fashion. I wasn’t in thrall as Putnam pursues the alien relentlessly. The ignorant townsfolk impugn him and act like the real monsters. Everyone has the personality of the gusset of granny tights. The unflappable dedicated young scientist saves the day in abysmal and misbegotten fashion. The moral of the story is that the aliens do not wish to subsume, subjugate or colonise, they just want to go home.
Best Lines:
“I didn’t hear nothing until you kept banging at my door!”
“It’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened in our time!”
“You’re not going to tell those people you saw Martians running around down there?”
“And what frightens them, they’re against one way or another.”
“I didn’t want to start anything alone out here.”
“Don’t be afraid.”
“Things so terrible you have yet to dream of them.”
“No one has yet turned up any bug-eyed monsters threatening Earth.”
“You will not see us until it is time.”
“Look at him walking around like he belongs here.”
~
Country Strong (2010)
A crap vanity project for Fish Stick.