Invaders from Mars (1953)
Directed by William Cameron Menzies
Written by William Cameron Menzies
Starring Jimmy Hunt, Helena Carter, Arthur Franz
Release Date April 9th, 1953
Published January 20th, 2023
A young boy awakens the middle of the night to see a bright green flying saucer. It's the kind of thing that has fired the imagination of sci-fi writers and directors for years and it's the opening scene of the 1953 film, Invaders from Mars. Children in movies like this are not to be believed until it is too late. This time, things are a little bit different. Having been shaken by his son's story, George MacLean (Leif Erickson) decides to go and see for himself what his son thinks he saw. When he doesn't return home, George's wife calls the cops. Then the cops disappear.
The George MacLean that comes back from this brief disappearance is not the same. Gone is the jovial, thoughtful and loving father. Returned is a cruel, abusive, and bitter man. The cops also come back but not the same as they were. They have a conspiratorial conversation with George that unsettles both his wife and his son. Actor Leif Erickson does a wonderful job in this scene of giving us a completely different version of the man we just met. The haunted eyes and desperate shift in nature echoes from his every expression.
Rather ingeniously given when the movie is made, Invaders from Mars communicates its sci-fi horror story using a very simple visual device, sand. Behind the home of our main character, David MacLean (Jimmy Hunt), is a sandy beach where the aliens he saw have landed and buried their ship. Through visual cues we know that the aliens have made the sand into a trap. The sand captures anyone who gets too close. When they come out of the sand, they are not the same. They have a mark on the back of their necks, a bloody X shape.
The sparse sets and stock footage and photos of Invaders from Mars are exceptionally well integrated. It's quite clear that writer-director William Cameron Menzie cared about making a good movie despite the limitations of his budget. It's exciting to watch, so many directors of similar 1950s science fiction didn't take nearly as much care in their integration of such things. Shaggy backdrops, shoddy early forms of green screen, and other such things are cheesy hallmarks of the era, charming in their way. That said, it's nice to see a director take such great care in one of these B-pictures.
The repeated motifs of Invaders from Mars include blank walls in every interior scene, spotlights, everywhere operated by army men, and stock footage, lots of military stock footage. It's all exceptionally well-integrated however, giving the film a strong verisimilitude for something so seemingly cheap. I adore this. :Lengthy shots of rolling tanks are matched with sound design that make you believe those tanks are in the same viciniy as our main characters. It's so good.
Find my full length review at Geeks.Media
