The stuff of childhood nightmares, 1953's "Invaders from Mars" proved far more valuable than just a minor footnote shot at Republic (picked up for distribution by Fox), as maverick production designer William Cameron Menzies ("Chandu the Magician," "Gone with the Wind") doubled as director, and a fine cast of familiar faces put forth a tale of terror through the eyes of a preteen astrologer. Jimmy Hunt's David MacLean is awakened during the night by a curious humming sound, witnessing a spaceship disappear into a sandpit in back of his house, conveniently covering itself up to avoid detection. His father George (Leif Erickson) works at a secret government facility and must investigate anything peculiar, vanishing in the sand before two policemen arrive and promptly follow suit. All three mysteriously turn up later, George now a distant stranger rather than the loving parent from before, and the cops refusing to do their duty and report the disappearance. David then spies a neighbor, Kathy Wilson (Janine Perreau), dropping from sight and informs her worried mother, only for the child to suddenly reappear and cause a fire to burn down her own home (her father, also a government worker, the intended target). The now frantic David is the one witness able to identify those afflicted by a small mark in the back of the neck, with the police chief (Bert Freed) and even General Mayberry (William Forrest) falling victim to the unseen invaders. Luckily the boy has two allies in fellow astronomer Stuart Kelston (Arthur Franz) and psychologist Dr. Pat Blake (Helena Carter), especially since both his parents have become mindless assassins awaiting orders to target certain individuals and sabotage all local areas involving space exploration (it does stretch credulity when Morris Ankrum's Colonel Fielding accepts the outlandish theory straight away). The human drama eventually takes a back seat to the military setup, leading to the final reel discovery of the Martian ship and its disembodied brain working with humanoid robot workers; the finale restores the dramatic intensity of the film's first half, though the British print features additional footage and an entirely different ending. By the 1980s a Tobe Hooper remake was earmarked for Karen Black, casting Jimmy Hunt as the possessed police chief, but in the era of cable and video tapes it just can't compare to the quality of 50s paranoia, essentially a child's version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." The lack of detail in the sets not only make them more psychologically effective they were undoubtedly cheaper to be built, and Menzies continuously works wonders on his modest budget (he went on to direct only one more film, "The Maze," in 3D). Morris Ankrum is fortunately spared from playing villain ("Flight to Mars," "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers"), and former Universal regular Milburn Stone was just two years away from his long running landmark Western GUNSMOKE, playing the amiable hard working Doc. Special mention must go to Leif Erickson and Hillary Brooke as David's parents, as warm and loving as one would expect them to be, until Martian possession make them a pair of traitorous murderers. George Pal's "The War of the Worlds" and Universal's "It Came from Outer Space" may have preceded this particular invasion but it still ranks near the top of that vivid and popular subgenre.
Review of Invaders from Mars
