REVIEW: It Came from Outer Space (1953)

I thought I'd try to do a regular review as a challenge to keep me writing. I further challenged myself with reviewing any films I had watched in the past week. Since I didn't watch anything relatively recent I thought I'd review the most obscure film I watched this week. Which means I'm reviewing Jack Arnold's 1953 film It Came from Outer Space.

Among Jack Arnold's long career as a director, he's known for a short but influential stint where he focused on horror and sci-fi which included Creature from the Black Lagoon, its sequel, Tarantula!, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and a few others, but he kicked off that run with this. Our lead is Richard Carlson, who would further collaborate as the male lead in Creature from the Black Lagoon, both times as a scientist. In It Came from Outer Space, amateur astronomer, John Putnam, played by Carlson, observes a meteor crash over the tiny desert town he lives in with his girlfriend, Ellen Fields, played by Barbara Rush - who won a Golden Globe award for most promising female newcomer for this performance. The lovebirds rush to the meteor where Putnam explores the crash site and observes that the meteor appears to have been a spaceship that consequentially gets buried in a landslide in the resulting crater. When Putnam reports this to others that have come to investigate, including apparent ex-beau of Fields, Sheriff Matt Warren, played by Charles Drake, Putnam gets ridiculed. The sheriff apparently told everyone in the small town as we eventually see the mockery continued in both radio and television reports in the next 24 hours. Before long we see some of the denizens get kidnapped by the alien and either cloned or have their mind controlled (it's left unclear). One of the more prominent unwitting victims is played by Russell Johnson who most older audience (like me) will either recognize from other sci-fi hits like This Island Earth or as the Professor from Gilligan's Island. We eventually watch as Putnam tries to negotiate with the aliens - they plead to be left to their devices as they crashed on Earth on accident. All they want is to repair the ship and leave. The controlled hostages are a gentle warning to be left alone. The sheriff acts as Putnam's hot headed foil, ready to fight the aliens, even though Putnam warns that might lead to the demise of the hostages. It ends on an optimistic note of cooperation as the hostages are released and the ship leaves.

It Came from Outer Space isn't a bad film by any means. There's a reason it's not as celebrated as other genre films in the era such as Forbidden Planet or Arnold's own Creature from the Black Lagoon, but it gets a name drop in Rocky Horror Picture Show's opening number "Science-Fiction/Double Feature" if that's any indication of how much of a cult hit it has since become. It stands out from other alien films in the era since the aliens aren't malicious, but the tension in the first half of the film when we don't know they aren't antagonistic is pretty enjoyable and the film does every little trick in the book to sell us on the opposite. The screenplay was originally written by sci-fi legend Ray Bradbury before (as the urban legend goes) screenwriter Harry Essex changed all the dialog and took the credit. Bradbury had actually submitted two screenplays as a sort of test to see if he wanted to work with the studio, one where the aliens were outright villains and this script. As this was the selected one, Bradbury decided Universal Pictures had passed the test and he moved forward with the project.

As for the film itself, it starts off as pretty standard fare for the era - dude sees a spaceship, no one believes him, we see visual hints indicating the alien is "up to something," and clueing the viewer in on how to look for evidence of the alien. There's some nice tension as the townsfolk start getting "collected" by the unseen alien entity - and the way the film treated the alien is actually my favorite parts. We rarely see the alien and when we do its for a matter of seconds at a time. The camera has a distorted view when we're viewing the world as the alien, but actual screen time of the alien comes to less than a minute in this wonderfully brief runtime of 81 minutes. If forced to, I wouldn't be able to describe the alien fully. I felt one of the strengths of the film was understanding that leaving the alien inexplicable enhanced the horror a bit. 

As mentioned, the humans that get "collected" are later under the control of the alien, acting as their advocates. They are able to blend in, much like Russell Johnson's George he runs errands for the aliens. But then Barbara Rush's Ellen gets captured and we get an absolute surprise - while she's normally seen in sensible desert clothing, once under the sway of the aliens she's suddenly in a black flowing gown like she's about to pop up in the dream ballet for Singin' in the Rain. Running through the desert she lures Putnam somewhere who is bewitched by seeing her like this. With how grounded most of the film is, this moment breathes otherworldliness into the experience. While I want to complain that I wish there were more moments like that one, but standing by itself it makes it all the more magical.

As the aliens ask Putnam to give him time, his only heroic moment is to really take no action and trust them at their word. He pleads with the sheriff, who was already antagonistic to Putnam to begin with. It seems odd and almost anti-heroic but the message of naive optimism was a pretty bold one at the height of the cold war era. It was a great viewing and I'd love to own a copy some day to revisit!

The version that's available to stream on both Amazon and Tubi has had the RINUUVA AI coloration treatment and looks abysmal. The skin tones on people change all the time and cars seem to shimmer as they drive. It's more disruptive than anything. If you can see it in classic black and white, that's what I'd encourage as I suffered through the AI coloration treatment. Let me be a cautionary tale!

Who is this film for: Sci-fi nerds, black and white film enthusiasts, and folks that dig classic genre film. If you think schlock doesn't mean bad, this will be a fun watch. Heck, if you're curious into getting into older films, this isn't that bad a gateway. Like I mentioned, it's less than 90 minutes so it never really lets up too much on your attention.

Why I'd revisit this flick: The scene with Barbara Rush wandering around in a black dress like she's some alien temptress is some weirdness that I enjoyed. Even now I feel it's siren call.