So there I was, washing the dishes, softly singing ‘Double Feature Picture Show’ from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when I realized it have been decades since I had last seen It Came From Outer Space.
Sadly that movie is not one of the films in my collection. I have a good number of he movies referenced in that song, but not all of them. (As a side note, none of the songs films in the song were made by RKO.) Once the dishes were in the drying rack – though we have a dishwashing machine my sweetie-wife prefers them washed by hand – I went to my computer to see if Netflix had It Came From Outer Space on instant view, nope, disc only. Next I checked with Hulu Plus, nope though I almost gave in and watched Plan 9 from Outer Space with the RiffTrax commentary. My final check, Amazon Prime instant videos struck mithril, yielding not only It Came From Outer Space, but it was one of the free videos.
Made in 1953 during Hollywood’s first 3D craze (the second came during the 80s, and the third one we’re currently suffering) and directed by Jack Arnold who has given us two Creature From the Black Lagoon movies, Tarantula, and other genre classics from the 50s. Way back in the late 80s, I was lucky enough to see this movie in the theater in 3D. The 3D worked very well and the story was compelling and interesting.
John Putnam, writer and amateur astronomer is celebrating a recent article sale with his lovely girlfriend Ellen, when the night is brilliantly illuminated by the meteor falling to earth near by. Being a science writer and therefore endowed with the curiosity of a score of men, John quickly arranges a crop-duster friend to fly him and Ellen out to the newly minted crater. Scrambling down alone into the crater, John comes face to hull with an alien spaceship. The aliens, undoubtedly fearing religious pamphlets about to be shoved into their grotesque faces, sham their hatch shut, trigger an avalanche. John, a dexterous and athletic author, dodges the descending debris and returns to the rim of the crater. His fantastic story is at once believed and there is a sudden rush of activity to dig out the alien spacecraft. I kid, of course no believes John, not even his lovely teacher girlfriend. Lucky for him on the drive home they encounter an alien and she becomes a believer. Throw I ‘The Professor’ working his way through college as a telephone lineman, some miner straight from central casting, and enough paranoia to supply a John Birch meeting and you have a film with mysterious aliens and possibly a threat to all of mankind.
The story for this movie came from ray Bradbury and as such this is several degrees smarter than the vast majority of SF movies, from either the period or now.