If there’s one director I think of when I think of ’50s sci-fi, it is the great Jack Arnold. If there’s one film I think of when I think of Jack Arnold, it’s…..well, it’s probably not this one.
In the first edition of Atomic Age Cinema I covered one of my favorite films of all time, but this time I’m tackling a film that I have some mixed feelings about.
It Came From Outer Space has a fantastic pedigree to be fair. Not only does it have legendary director Jack Arnold (Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Incredible Shrinking Man) behind the camera, but it’s based on a treatment (possibly a full screenplay, though reports vary) by science fiction titan Ray Bradbury. Plus it’s starring the always reliable Richard Carlson. Hell, even Henry Mancini does great uncredited work on the score.
As a film about a small group of people that investigates a meteorite crash that turns out to be an alien spaceship, it’s pretty good. Richard Carlson gives a solid, believable performance as amateur astronomer John Putnam, who’s the first to make the discovery. A surprisingly little amount of the movie actually involves the alien running amok, which is to the movie’s benefit. The film thrives on suspense, giving us only a little tease of what the alien looks like and how it moves in the beginning (it kind of floats, leaving a shiny trail behind it), allowing the viewer’s imagination to take hold. We get several shots from the alien’s point of view, which is a neat effect (probably even neater in the original 3D), and always accompanied by classic eerie music.
That the movie succeeds so much in building suspense and allowing the viewer’s imagination to run wild. The movie has been building up to this one big dramatic moment. This all sounds good. So where does the bad kick in?
Honestly, it’s really just the alien. But when the alien looks this bad, it’s a problem.
I didn’t even get to have the villain revealed to me the old fashioned way either. Does anyone remember those old DVD Scene It? games? I remember a long time ago playing and being given a scene of Richard Carlson outside a mineshaft, stumbling upon an alien creature with a giant eye that slowly approached him. It looked terrible then as it does now, and it epitomizes what many people think of when they remember bad ’50s sci-fi effects. After all that amazing suspense building to then be let down with this creature really just stinks.
It’s disappointing, but I can’t possibly ignore all the things the movie does well. It’s because of the score and suspense building that I do like the movie, I just wouldn’t recommend it to everybody. This one is for the die-hards – the people want to consume quality science fiction and don’t mind rolling both your eyes as one less than scary eye stares back at you.
