Continuing my run of films best suited for the month of October last night, after a very frustrating day dealing with AT&T technical support, I watched 1958’s It! The Terror From Beyond Space. This movie along with Planet of the Vampires,  in which no vampires appear, is one of the direct predecessors to 1979’s amazing and classic film Alien. Written by Jerome Bixby It! Pits the crew of a spaceship against a deadly and unstoppable monstrous alien that has stowed away aboard their rocket.

The first Mars expedition has ended in disaster with all communication lost after the ship reached Mars. The film opens with a voice over explaining that the second expedition has rescued the narrator, the sole survivor of the doomed first, and is taking him back to Earth to face trial for the murder of he fellow crew in a bid to survive the harsh and unforgiving Martian environment. It’s not long before the alien stow away make itself known and the crew begin their retreat deck by deck from its lethal assaults. This exploration/rescue mission is stocked with cases of grenades, endless 45 semi-automatic pistols, home made gas bombs, and even a bazooka that is fired off in the cramp confines of the bridge but nothing stops or even hampers the creature’s attacks.  Two of the ten cast members are women but even for 1958 this movie is out right sexist with the ladies forced to serve dinner and coffee while providing only the barest of plot of character motivations, and with the younger, of course, thrust into a needless love triangle because that’s why females characters exist in movies.

Despite its cheesiness It! Manages to score what might be a few important moments in cinema history. Between stolen model designs and sequences the climax of the film may very well represent the first cinematic explosive decompression. The basic set up was one of the films that inspired Dan O’Bannon when he started out crafting the script to Alien and that lineage is stark and clear. Without this mostly forgettable film we would have never been introduced to Ellen Ripley.