Tonight I watched a sci-fi classic called "It Came From Outer Space" (1953), which I found on the dvd rack at West Valley Libe (open on Sundays, yippee!). Question : How can I not have seen this movie before? If you know the answer, please tell me because I don't understand it. I mean, this flick is well-known, at least as much as "Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers" and "When Worlds Collide" and all the biggies of 1950s Atomic Age sci-fi. Maybe I had it confused with "It Came From Beneath The Sea", which I did see, in fact I think I own it. Anyway, that's possible I suppose, that I confused "It Came From Beneath The Sea" with "It Came From Outer Space", but if I did I blame the filmmakers for not getting their facts straight. I mean, c'mon......at least figure out where "It Came From" before you go telling us two different stories.
Alright, so we don't have a definitive answer as to how I - a humongous 1950s Sci-Fi fan - could have gone all this time without seeing one of the genre's seminal films, but I'll let the matter drop if you will. I mean hey - I've still never seen "Casablanca", and nobody's given me any heat about that, so whatever.
The bottom line is that "It Came From Outer Space", meaning both the title of the movie and a statement of fact. Look : I was there when the movie started and I saw it, excuse me I mean It, and I saw where It Came From, which was Outer Space. It landed in the Arizona desert, just outside of Santa Clarita, and Richard Carlson saw it too. So that's that. The issue of Where It Came From has been settled.
Carlson is a writer and amateur astronomer who keeps a telescope in his yard at the edge of the desert. As the movie opens, he is studying the night sky as his girlfriend Barbara Rush talks astrology. He is a Sagittarius, she is a Scorpio; she explains their compatibility. You can do their charts yourself to see if it checks out, but the thing is, in the middle of their reverie, a Gigantic Fireball comes streaking across the sky, hurtling at a slightly off-horizontal angle until it crashes into the desert floor with a resounding Whammo!!
Richard Carlson immediately contacts a buddy of his who runs a helicopter service, and they do a middle-of-the night flyover of the crash site. An enormous crater has been created by the fireball, "the biggest we've ever seen", declares Carlson. The crater is indeed big, half a mile across. Carlson is fascinated, and against the wishes of his gal Barbara Rush) he orders the pilot to land the chopper at the crater's edge. From there he clambers down inside this deep hole in the Earth, to see the meteor up close.
Except when he gets down there, he can see that it's not a meteor.
It's a Space Ship that resembles a giant sized soccer ball.
But don't get the idea that it is cheesy looking.
Carlson inches closer to the ship for a better look, and then suddenly one of the hexagonal soccer ball sections opens up! It's a doorway. Carlson can see inside to the ship's sleek, sparse interior. There doesn't seem to be anyone about, however, so he steps toward the door to have a look for himself. Just then, the door slams, creating an Enormous Landslide around the crater. In short order, the Space Ship is buried beneath tons of rock. Carlson is lucky to get out alive. As they head back to town, he tells the chopper pilot and his girlfriend that they have to alert the Sheriff and the press. "Both of you saw it"!, he declares.
"But it's buried now", replies Barbara Rush. "No one will believe us".
It turns out she is right. No one believes that a Space Ship is buried at the bottom of the crater. Furthermore, the Sheriff and the local reporters don't trust Richard Carlson to begin with. He is an Egghead, always talking about complex ideas, so now that he's insisting that Aliens have landed, they straight up think he's crazy. There is strength in numbers where this type of mentality is concerned, so Carlson is ostracized to the point where the Sheriff is ready to punch him out.
But then, something happens.
Russell Johnson is working on a telephone line, way out in the desert. This is before he became The Professor on "Gilligan's Island". So he's out there with his partner, and suddenly they hear a rustling noise in the underbrush. Johnson goes over to inspect, and......doesn't come back.
His partner drives back to town to report the disappearance, and from there things get weird (which is always good, right?)
Pretty soon, Johnson's partner goes missing too, and when they finally turn up, they don't seem like their old selves anymore. Yeah, it's one of those deals like in "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers", except this movie came first!
What eventually happens is that the Sheriff is forced to take Carlson seriously. He finally has to send out a team to dig out all the rock so they can see what's down there at the bottom of the crater, but by the time they do this, Barbara Rush has disappeared. Richard Carlson now has a personal stake in the matter, and goes searching the desert for her, following the lead of phosphorescent trails that temporarily appear and then disappear. The trails lead to an old abandoned mine, and.......
That's all I'm gonna tell you.
But you've most likely seen the movie anyway, right? I mean, you couldn't have missed it all these years like I did, could you?
At any rate, "It Came From Outer Space" is an All Time Freakin' Classic of Sci-Fi. It almost plays like a Noir, filmed mostly at night in the desert, partly at the Alabama Hills, and with a lot of day-for-night photography also. It looks incredible, never cheesy, and the direction is solid behind Jack Arnold, who is the dean of 1950s sci-fi directors. He did "Tarantula" and "Creature From The Black Lagoon", just to name two. He also directed a boatload of "Gilligan's Island" episodes, which may account for the Russell Johnson connection, but anyway - yeah, he has created another classic here.
Two Gigantic Thumbs Up for "It Came From Outer Space", a major league epic of classic science fiction. I can't believe it took me so long to see it, but it also gives me hope that there are other confusingly-titled movies out there that I have assumed I've seen but have not. ////
That's all for the moment. I will now head over to Von's on a quick resupply mission before going back to Pearl's for the Supper Shift. See you later tonight, as usual!
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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