It Came from Outer Space (1953)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Jack Arnold

Writers:

Ray Bradbury (story)
Harry Essex (screenplay)

Release Date:

23 October 1953 (Italy)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

Terror In 3-D... Reaching From The Screen To Seize You In Its Grasp!...

Plot:

A spaceship from another world crashes in the Arizona desert, and only an amateur stargazer and a schoolteacher suspect alien influence when the local townsfolk begin to act strange.

Plot Keywords:

Desert | Arizona | Schoolteacher | Writer | Meteor

Awards:

Won Golden Globe. Another 1 nomination

Cast

Richard Carlson	...	John Putnam
Barbara Rush	...	Ellen Fields
Charles Drake	...	Sheriff Matt Warren
Joe Sawyer	...	Frank Daylon
Russell Johnson	...	George
Kathleen Hughes	...	Jane

Also Known As:

Atomic Monster (USA) (working title)
Strangers from Outer Space (USA) (working title)
The Meteor (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

81 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

3 Channel Stereo (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

West Germany:12 (nf) | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 (1953) | Sweden:15 | UK:PG | USA:Approved (PCA #16454)

Filming Locations:

Dead Man's Point, Lucerne Valley, California, USA

Company:

Universal International Pictures (UI)

Trivia:

Although credited to Harry Essex, most of the script, including dialogue, is copied almost verbatim from Ray Bradbury's initial film treatment.

Goofs:

Plot holes: When the aliens assume the forms of all the people they've kidnapped, they're always wearing the same clothes their victims had been wearing when they were taken - with two exceptions: Putnam and Ellen. In their cases, the aliens raided their homes and stole clothes for their "duplicates". First: how did the aliens end up in the same clothes worn by the other people? Did all these people have two identical sets of clothing lying around their houses? Second: why steal different clothing for the Ellen and Putnam clones? Third: at least in the case of Ellen, why did they empty out her entire wardrobe instead of taking just one dress? Fourth: if, under a different but unstated hypothesis, the aliens only appeared to be dressed the same as the others - i.e., through morphing or some other illusion - then why would they need to steal anybody's clothes?

Quotes:

[first lines]
John Putnam: [off-screen] This is Sand Rock, Arizona, of a late evening in early spring. It's a nice town, knowing its past and sure of its future, as it makes ready for the night, and the predictable morning. The desert blankets the earth, cooling, resting for the fight with tomorrow's sun. And in my house near the town, we're also sure of the future. So very sure.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Lobster Man from Mars (1989)

Sci-Fit Thriller With Style, Good Acting and a Thoughtful Script

This modest science fiction film from Ray Bradbury's short story "The Meteor" is perhaps the most-imitated film in the history of cinema.. The screenplay for this feature was written by Harry Essex, with direction by veteran action-film expert Jack Arnold. It is set on the edge of the desert, and involves in its storyline the crash of a mysterious meteor. Investigating it, a scientist living nearby discovers it is an alien spacecraft; he glimpses an ugly amoeboid creature like an octopus with a giant eye. Its next efforts cause a landslide which hides the spacecraft under a landslide, so no one else can see what he saw. The next development, when no one believes him, is that local people, law-enforcement and others, start acting like zombies; his wife believes him, but when the folk start coming into town he knows he needs to do something. Heading to the site again, he contacts the alien minds who tell him they only wish to escape Earth, where they do not belong. He gives them the help they require and the ship takes off the next day, heading home and leaving hi,m, and us, with a genuine mystery and an important question about parochial attitudes and out fitness to extend man's reach into the Galaxy when this urge has not been conquered. The production in B/W is a very good one for a "B" film, I assert., Joan St. Eigger did the hairstyles, Rosemary Odell the costumes, Russell A. Gausman and Ruby R. Levitt the sets, with Bud Westmore handling the unusual makeup challenges. The very fine art direction was done by Bernard Herzbrun and Robert A. Boyle, with luminous cinematography by Clifford Stine. In the solid cast are Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, Charles Drake as the Sheriff, Joe Sawyer, Russell Johnson and Kathleen Hughes. it is arguable that Richard Carlson talks too much about the mysteries of the desert in this film, as n allegory for the dangers of the unknown, the wild, the as-yet-untamed--for space itself; but the dialogue is good-enough, the situations genuinely eerie and the style of the film, its crisis and its and pacing far-above-the-expected. In lesser hands, this production could have been less effective; this has become a classic example of how to handle several sci-fi situations. It earns the stature of being fundamentally scary; yet it is also thoughtful and interesting at the same time, by my standards. This is sci-fi noir of a very high sort.