The year is 1953, and you’ve just put your 3D glasses on and settled in for the Amazing! Exciting! and Spectacular! thrills of It Came from Outer Space. Here’s the first thing you see: A flaming meteor careens across the sky, streaking the twilight air with white-hot fire. It takes a sudden turn; now it’s coming straight at you! The explosion sends a shockwave through the audience. Everyone recoils in terror, and then, before they can recover from the exhilarating illusion, the fanfare kicks in, and an iconic title rips across the screen before them.
And so, in just a mere 20 seconds or so, It Came from Outer Space proves its significance as a cultural touchstone and a science fiction classic that laid the blueprint for an entire era of alien invasion films. 1951’s monumental The Day the Earth Stood Still might have come first, but It Came from Outer Space altered the course of science fiction cinema and stands right up there with it as a masterpiece of the Atomic Age.
The film is the quintessential Aliens-on-Earth jam. It follows a dogged amateur astronomer desperate to prove that extraterrestrials reside within the meteor that crashed on the outskirts of his small Arizona town. As it turns out, there were, in fact, aliens inside the meteor, but they’ve since moved out and begun to take on the likenesses of people in the town. Branded a nut-case by all but his faithful fiancée, the astronomer must find a way to convince the townspeople of the aliens’ existence or else face apocalyptic consequences.
The story was provided by none other than science fiction literature giant Ray Bradbury. Famed for his novels and short story collections such as Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man, and The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury imbues what might otherwise be run-of-the-mill pulp with thought-provoking social commentary and his usual poetical flair. Indeed, the biggest factor that sets It Came from Outer Space apart from similar films of the era is the unique twist that comes late in the film; as it turns out (spoilers for a 70-year-old movie ahead!), the aliens actually come in peace. Bradbury’s genius story sees the people of Anytown, USA, being so helplessly corrupted by paranoia and deep-rooted hatred of “the other” that they can’t even fathom that these visitors may be more terrified of us than we are of them.
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This theme is brilliantly exemplified in a scene in which our amateur astronomer asks the gung-ho sheriff to consider why he fears or feels disgusted by a spider traversing the desert. Is it because it has eight legs? Because it looks different than we do? Because it doesn’t speak our language? Before our protagonist – a surrogate for Bradbury himself, one might presume – has a chance to even finish his question, the sheriff stomps the spider into oblivion. This simple scene drives it all home: It Came from Outer Space isn’t your typical alien disaster flick. It dares to beg its audience not to watch the skies, but to watch each other and themselves.
Apart from the complex themes the film explores, it also manages to be rock-solid and highly influential alien invasion entertainment. The concept of aliens that are grotesque (to humans) in their natural state assuming the likenesses of humans may seem cliché nowadays, but it was entirely novel at the time. The much more well-known Invasion of the Body Snatchers would model itself very closely after It Came from Outer Space, aping not only the body-snatching concept but also the underlying themes relating to Cold War paranoia.
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The film was directed by Jack Arnold, who would go on to direct many of the greatest science fiction films of all time, including The Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Incredible Shrinking Man. It Came from Outer Space was the start of a hot-streak for Arnold that collectively would define the ‘50s sci-fi aesthetic, as well as influence prominent filmmakers of later generations such as John Carpenter and Joe Dante. Unfortunately, the film was overshadowed by the release of George Pal and Byron Haskin’s War of the Worlds that same year, which sported full-color photography and Academy Award-winning special effects. The explosive dumb-fun of that movie would go on to inspire countless other alien invasion flicks like Earth vs. the Flying Saucers and Invaders from Mars. Despite this, the importance of Arnold’s scrappy, black-and-white sci-fi debut cannot be overstated.
Not only did the film introduce the world to Arnold’s particular brand of science fiction, but it also set its star, Richard Carlson, on the sci-fi path. Following It Came from Outer Space, Carlson would go on to become a staple of science fiction and horror films, appearing in such classics as The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Magnetic Monster, and The Valley of Gwangi. His perpetually curious and introspective aura and ability to act dignified in a desperate situation made him one of the ultimate faces of the genre. The film also provided its female lead, Barbara Rush, with her big break, garnering her a 1954 Golden Globe.
It Came from Outer Space released to mixed reviews in 1953, but has since been reappraised as an all-time classic. The film was nominated for AFI’s Top 10 Science Fiction Films list and was beautifully restored by Universal Studios for Blu-ray release in 2016. If you decide to watch It Came from Outer Space – whether it’s your first time or a long-overdue revisit – be sure to do so in 3D. The film was Universal’s first 3D picture, and it goes without saying that they knocked it out of the park. It’s the way it was intended to be seen, and it really is glorious.
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