Invaders from Mars production designed and directed by William Cameron Menzies (1953)
10 September 2006An enjoyable if low budget 1950’s science fiction film, slightly marred by it’s cheesy ending (at least with the US version, the included British version does not have the cheesy ending. And enjoyable story, reminiscent of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but with the main character being a small boy who sees his town being taken over by aliens, and must do what he can to save his parents and the town. The effects are cheesy, and there are too many of them, and much of the footage used is stock army footage, and much of the exterior action still takes place on a set that is not too impressive, but the it doesn’t really mar the enjoyability of the film, but if you are going here for flying saucers, you are out of luck except one shot in the beginning that is none too impressive.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…
The young boy, David MacLean (Jimmy Hunt) has set his alarm to wake up at 4 AM and look at an astral phenomenon through his telescope, but he wakes his parents George (leif Erickson) and Mary (Hillary Brooke), and they make him go back to sleep, but a storm starts and wakes him up and he sees a flying saucer land behind a hill behind his house. David is scared so his father goes to check, and falls into a hole in the sand. He is missing so Mary calls the cops, and 2 cops go out there and disappear, but George returns, though it doesn’t seem like it is him. He is abusive and strange, and when the missing cops return they all seem to be in on something. And David notices a strange wound on the back of all their necks. David runs off to get some help, he goes to a friends house because he saw their daughter fall in the hole, but she returns and she is strange like the others, and lit her house on fire with gasoline. David keeps running, and goes to the police, but the chief has already been taken, and David is locked up. Luckily for him a nice cop calls Dr. Pat Blake (Helena Carter) who listens to David’s story and calls his friend the scientist Dr. Stuart Kelson (Arthur Franz) who backs David as not a liar, and Pat stops the controlled George and Mary from taking David, and they head to Stuart’s observatory where they look and see people being taken and get in touch with the army. The Army comes in to help, but the taken people keep doing sabotage, and when cornered the implants in their brains explode and kill them. Eventually Colonel Fielding (Morris Ankrum) surrounds the underground spaceship, and they discover a series of passages underground. David and Pat are taken by the aliens, tall green furred creatures run by a head in a glass jar, who can dig through the ground with a ray gun. The army manages to find the spaceship and plants explosives, and must search to find David, but they do, but they are trapped, but thanks to David they use the alien ray gun to cut their way out and get out on the ground. As they run, and the spaceship tries to take off, David starts seeing flashes and wakes up, it has all been a dream and his parents are OK.
Bad ending, but enjoyable film. The British Ending has the alien ship explode and David is safe with Stuart and Pat a much better ending.
This is a good and enjoyable film, and Jimmy Hunt is great in his role.
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