It Came from Outer Space

In the Arizona desert, the amateur astronomer John Putnam sees something large fall from the sky and goes to the crash site. Nobody believes him. Soon people in town start behaving oddly: the same faces, the wrong behaviour. The film is not interested in the fear of invasion. It is interested in how people react to a stranger: these aliens have not come to take the planet, their ship is broken and they are trying to repair it and leave. The panic is what produces the danger. The form was designed for 3-D; it was Universal's first film in the process, and the compositions are built to use depth. The desert, the empty roads and the mine are its strongest locations. The story is Ray Bradbury's. In 1952 he wrote several versions, from a thirty-seven-page outline to a hundred and nineteen-page treatment; Harry Essex wrote the final screenplay. Bradbury insisted the aliens not be hostile, which was an unusual choice in the science fiction of the day. Jack Arnold directed. Richard Carlson and Barbara Rush star. Who it is for: viewers curious about fifties science fiction and the history of the genre. Who it is not for: anyone judging by modern effects. The alien design is simple and the film builds most of its tension by implication.