| Title |
Invaders From Mars |
| Copyright Title |
Invaders From Mars |
| Released |
1953 |
| Production Year |
1953 |
| Countries of Production |
United States |
| Comments |
- |
| Synopsis |
Psychologically terrifying space-invader movie made at the height of McCarthyism centers around 10-year-old boy astronomer betrayed by most of the adults he knows, including his parents. Small and cheap, but brilliantly and boldly helmed by William Cameron Menzies -- the production designer of Gone With the Wind -- "Invaders from Mars" had enough of a timeless paranoiac jolt to be remade, albeit poorly, by Tobe Hooper in the 1980s. Back in the 50s, while Hollywood and Congress panicked and did some pretty cruel and crazy things in reaction to an alleged invasion of commies, Little Jimmy is figuring out who do you trust after learning that everything he's been told about authority -- family, the church, even the chief of police -- is a big fat lie. Interestingly, the person who defends and leads Jimmy in his insistence on conspiracy is a true alien for the time, a creature who somehow wafted through the cracks in the well-wrought PC system to become a "lady doctor." The choice of such an underground avatar is reminiscent of George Romero's use of Duane Jones as the unambivalent protagonist in "Night of the Living Dead (1968). With Hillary Brooke as mom, and British great Bert Freed as the top cop. |
tags: Sci-fi
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