It Came From Outer Space

It Came From Outer Space (Jack Arnold, 1953) Before there was E.T., there was an un-abbreviated "IT."

Writer and amateur astronomer John Putnam (Richard Carlson) is spending a quiet night in his desert home making lovey-dovey talk with his squeeze, teacher Ellen Fields (Barbara Rush)—frankly, she has the most earning power in this relationship—when he decides to take a look at the night sky. Well, he doesn't need a telescope to see what's coming our way. A big old flaming something-or-other comes streaking over the desert hills and crashes at the base of the desert foot-hills.

Because he is so in love with his girlfriend, he decides to charter a helicopter from buddy Pete Davis (Dave Willock) to rush over to see what crashed. Hey, nothing to worry about!

Little does he know that the thing is an alien space-craft, and one of its bug-eyed occupants (we'll call it "IT" for now) has exited the craft and started exploring the landing area, leaving a shimmering trail of...criminy, is that glitter? Do the "IT's" shop at Joann Fabrics?

You knows he's a 1950's writer because of the patches on his elbows.
You know she's a 1950's teacher because she wears pearls.

No matter. John, Ellen, and Pete land by the crash-site at the old Excelsior mine (owned by Stan Lee, maybe?) and, interested as he is, he abandons his girl-friend and scrambles into the crater. There he finds a huge glowing orb that pulses with whatever energy or heat-waves are emanating from it. He sees what would appear to be a door at the front of it, figuring that, at that point, it's not a meteorite, but some sort of craft or device and, peering into it, he sees equipment. But, he doesn't see that he's being observed. As the door moves, it creates a small avalanche, and Putnam, no dummy, beats it out of there.

"Hmmph! Compensating for something?"

Putnam tells Ellen and Pete what he saw down there and they're a little skeptical—he should probably get used to that feeling, because over the course of the movie, nobody is going to believe what he says and they're going to think he's a kook. Doubling down on that begins almost immediately with the two most skeptical people anyone could find in a town—the sheriff (Charles Drake) and the local newspaper publisher (Alan Dexter). Putnam, still agog over what he saw, thinks nothing of telling them exactly what he saw, never once thinking "These guys could either lock me up or make me look like a loon in the paper."
For a writer, he doesn't have much imagination. But, neither do police or newspapermen.

"Our town needs a soccer team..."

Of course, the sheriff is predisposed to think Putnam is a flake—he's had designs on Ellen for years (not that he'd let that get in the way of his job! *cough*) and things get a little uncomfortable between them...in front of the newspaper-guy, and so Putnam is persuaded to leave before things get worse and more people find out. But, on the way home, teacher Ellen gets a real education about maybe believing in what John saw down in the mine. But, now there's an IT blocking the road and they just avoid hitting it and trashing the car. When they get out to take a look—they get out and take a LOOK??!—the IT roadblock is gone, leaving only a trail of glitter like a "My Little Pony."

1950's prototype highway cameras...

After such a weird occurrence, Putnam and Ellen return to the Excelsior mine, where they find a circus of reporters, TV crews, police and scientists who are swarming all over the site. This might have been helped by that responsible newspaper publisher "fake-newsing" a front page headline that reads "Star Gazer Sees Martians." Way to vet, "Hearst." Putnam has microphones shoved in his face, but he and Ellen escape from the Press, but only after he is informed by one of the scientists that the craft is not radioactive. Good thing they're not in the Nevada desert in the '50's. They take a jaunt along the highway and scan the countryside with binoculars to see if they can see anything.

"I'm going to do a show called WHAT in the 60's?"

Along the way, they run into a couple of telephone linemen, Frank (Joe Sawyer) and George (Russell Johnson), who are working along the highway. Putnam stops and asks Frank if he's seen anything...ya know..."unusual." No, says Frank, but he's picking up weird signals over the wires. The two love-birds continue their searching while the two phone jockeys move down the line and have a close encounter—too close. George gets out of the close and while we get the IT's perspective through a "Jell-O" filter, he's enveloped by a noxious fog and collapses. Poor "Professor."

"John, why are all those people wearing red and blue glasses?"
"I don't know, honey, but I'm glad I brought my pistol!"

Not finding anything up the road, Putnam and Ellen start worrying about the linemen they've left behind. They back-track and find the men's truck, abandoned, with some blood on the door. Putnam grabs his pistol (naturally) and the two start searching through the scrub, following the glitter to either find the ITs or Elton John. They don't get too far before they find George. But, George is, frankly, acting weird or—given that Russell Johnson is a pretty good thesp—acting badly. Speaking in a halting monotone, he has none of the personality of George and all of the personality of Al Gore. He is vague and unhelpful when asked about where Frank might be, but Putnam sees beyond a boulder an outstretched hand. Is it Frank?  He doesn't intend to ask George or he'll probably get a lecture on carbon footprints, so they smile and act "normal" and get the Hell out of there.

Let me tell you about an Inconvenient Truth

Where do they go? The Sheriff's office. And why not? Just because he thinks you're a kook and has the hots for your girlfriend. What can go wrong? Putnam and Ellen convince Sheriff Matt to go with them because (gosh-darn it!) they have proof this time. And when they get there...the proof is gone. Even though it won't be invented for 15 years, someone has taken a Dust-Buster to the glitter. "But, we saw it, we tell you!" they argue, but the Sheriff just wants to get back to the office.

Too bad they weren't around 30 minutes earlier, when Frank woke up and saw two George's. The creature has taken on George's form, but reassures the two men that his kind would not take over their souls, their minds or their bodies. From now on in this post, we will refer to the ITs as "Xeroxians™." He tells them not to be afraid. It will only be necessary for a short time. We cut away before there are any questions about double Union wages for playing two parts.

Putnam and Ellen drive the Sheriff back to town, but they see Frank and George—or given their robotic walk and looks, their doubles. Putnam takes off after them and corners them, telling the Xeroxians that he wants to help, but asks where his friends are. He is reassured that they are alright, but to give the aliens time. "Give us time or terrible things will happen. Things you can only dream about." These guys sound like great Presidential candidates. Human beings must be like potato chips because the Xeroxians can't absorb just one. Pretty soon, they have a bunch of the township under wraps and unlike other alien probes, they're only violating their copyrights. Because he's a writer and amateur astronomer, Putnam decides to take the job of getting to the bottom of things rather than letting any professionals do it.

"Does this Jell-o filter make me look...?"

By any stretch of the imagination, It Came from Outer Space is not a great science fiction movie, although it does peg the ol' kitsch meter. So, it may come as a surprise that the story is an original treatment by Ray Bradbury, one the greatest lights in the night-sky of sci-fi. The screenplay is credited to Harry Essex, and the dialogue is sledgehammer subtle. But, the details are all Bradbury, most especially the concept that the Xeroxians are not invaders, but merely had to make an emergency landing on Earth, and are doing their best not to cause a distraction or garner attention to themselves. After all, they must think they've landed on the Planet of the Monkey-People and they're worried about being contaminated by our damn, dirty paws.

"Mischief Matters!"

Still, the psychology of the Xeroxians is a little contrived and very lucky for Earthlings. I mean, humans gets kidnapped and held hostage, sure, and their identities appropriated, but they're not exactly using their credit cards or something else heinous. However, on the Xeroxian side of the ledger, two of them get shot and immolated or dissolved, and they have no sense of regret or vengeance in any way displayed. Lucky Earthlings. Why, the Xeroxians don't even have a form a space small-pox that can cause lungs to explode to even the score.

"Who were those creatures?" "I don't know, but I wanted to thank them."

But, the Arizona Earthlings end up looking like doofi. There's not much tolerance displayed and a propensity to wave guns around, shoot first and investigate later. There's no sense of wonder but a prevailing sense of panic. And the Xeroxians? The worst you can say is they're dangerously middle-of-the-road—as in standing in it—and they have a lousy fashion sense. A black cocktail dress in the middle of the Arizona desert? Really?

Still, that concept of non-hostile aliens is something of an anomaly in the science fiction firmament (although The Day the Earth Stood Still did it two years earlier), especially for a xenophobic time as the 1950's. 

Next week, same space, same time—another sci-fi movie with an equally reductive term for "the other."

Camera-saving VFX from the 1950's: evidently (you can tell from the left) that it was shot using a mirror.

Put on your 3-D glasses, kids!