Flying saucers and alien invasion movies were the trend in the 1950s. UFO sightings in Washington State in 1947 and the famous crash near Roswell, New Mexico in 1948 had ignited a fever for all things alien. The movies soon followed the public interest with films like The Thing from Another World (1951), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), War of the Worlds (1953), This Island Earth (1955), Earth vs. The Flying Saucers (1956), Invasion of the Saucer-Men (1957), and many more of varying levels of quality. Many of these science fiction/horror hybrids were aimed toward an audience of children and teenagers and often featured young people, but few placed the viewer so deeply in the child’s perspective as the 1953 classic Invaders from Mars.
In many ways, Invaders from Mars walked so that Invasion of the Body Snatchers could run just three years later. Much of this is due to its extremely low budget and independent production. Some sets are re-dressed to serve as different locations. For example, the police station serves double duty as a scientist’s lab. The costumes of the Martians, called Mutants in the movie, look like green crushed velvet pajamas complete with a visible zipper up the back. After post-production, the movie came in too short and a great deal of stock footage of tanks, military trucks, and artillery explosions were added. Though the military was always an element of the film, these extra ten minutes gives it an almost jingoistic quality that was not originally there.
But despite its limitations, Invaders from Mars does an awful lot very well.
The look of the film immediately stands out and is a major reason why it has endured. This is mainly due to two people, production designer/director William Cameron Menzies and cinematographer John Seitz. Menzies is one of the legendary production designers and art directors in film history, responsible for the design of such legendary films as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), The Thief of Bagdad (1924), Gone with the Wind (1939), Pride of the Yankees (1942), and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). His science fiction credibility was secured in 1936 when he directed the film version of H.G. Wells’ Things to Come, considered one of the great early films of the genre. John Seitz was one of the most respected cinematographers in Hollywood, best known for shooting important films for Preston Sturges including Sullivan’s Travels (1941) and The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944) and Billy Wilder including Double Indemnity (1944), The Lost Weekend (1945), and Sunset Boulevard (1950) among many other great films. With these credentials, it is remarkable that these men would be involved in such a small, independent film, but they not only signed on to the picture but were determined to make it as good as they possibly could, pouring every ounce of their professionalism, imagination, and experience into the final product.
In order to compete with the growing popularity of television as well as the announced, bigger budget production of War of the Worlds from producer George Pal, it was also decided that Invaders from Mars would be in color, something that was considerably rare for genre films at the time. The saturated film color of the era gives a sense of heightened reality to the film. There is a dreamlike quality to Invaders from Mars which works greatly to its benefit. Every shot was storyboarded by Menzies, the compositions carefully chosen to give precisely the information needed and to underscore the desired emotional impact. Unfortunately, just before shooting began, these storyboards were lost, perhaps unwittingly thrown out by the cleaning crew, and Menzies worked entirely from memory of his designs. Even with this added challenge, every composition is beautifully executed, the camera placed exactly where it should be.
Perhaps above all, Invaders from Mars depicts the point of view of a child better than practically any genre film until the 1980s when movies like E.T. took the concepts to a new level. We are placed in the shoes of the film’s protagonist, David Maclean (Jimmy Hunt) and feel his inability to trust those who should be in a position to protect him. There is a dreamlike quality to the majority of the film, emphasized by the rich, hyperreal color and the deliberate design of the sets. In this film, everything is oversized, stark, and imposing. The police station is a perfect example with its massive doors, gigantic reception desk, and the jail cell with its bars casting deep shadows on the bare walls. This unusual feel culminates in the climax of the film through superimpositions, unusual (almost experimental) editing, running moments of the film in reverse, and subtle changes to the sound design that take us right up to the chilling final shot.
David is also one of the first in a long line of monster kids in the movies. The monster kid is the young person, almost always a pre-teen boy, whose obsession with horror allows him to see the problem and how to deal with it before anyone else. Often, his interest in horror is used against him to sow distrust. In Invaders from Mars, David’s mother (Hillary Brooks), under the influence of the Martians, tells the police and Dr. Pat Blake (Helena Carter) that David has “been reading those trashy science fiction magazines” in an attempt to discredit him, following it up by adding “he’s out of control.” Fortunately for David, astronomer Dr. Stuart Kelston (Arthur Franz) assures Blake that David is a very rational child, not given to flights of fancy and making up stories. The monster kid would become a key character in many horror stories and movies from Mark Petrie in Salem’s Lot to The Monster Squad and beyond.
The paranoia of the early fifties is palpable throughout Invaders. Stories of brainwashing of captured American soldiers in Korea had made their way home. Here, it takes the form of an implant that the Mutants place in the brains of humans in order to control their actions. They begin by capturing and taking control of men and women in places of authority over a rocket project that is being undertaken nearby. The police, David’s father (Leif Erickson), and his friend Kathy (Janine Perreau), the daughter of the physicist who conceived the rocket, all fall victim to the Martians’ mind control. It soon becomes clear that nobody can be trusted. Though this would become a key element of later science fiction and horror from Invasion of the Body Snatchers to The Thing (1982) all the way to The Faculty (1999), Invaders was the first film to use the taking over of humans by aliens to underscore feelings of hysteria, distrust, and paranoia.
Though aspects of the film have dated, this in particular remains remarkably prescient. As with the 1950s, we are currently living in a time of social paranoia in the United States. Conspiracy theories abound, political and ideological differences break apart friendships and families. To quote a paranoia film of another era, “nobody trusts anybody…and we’re all very tired.” It has been observed that history does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. This is why the ideas and sentiments at the heart of films like Invaders from Mars still resonate even if certain aspects feel quite distant. This is also why restoration and preservation of the films of the past is so important. Classic films are a snapshot of the look and feelings of the time they were made but also remind us that as much as things change, the core of humanity largely remains constant—our desires, joys, and, perhaps above all, fears change very little. Invaders from Mars specifically addresses the deep, primal fear that those closest to us and those in authority may not be who we think they are. Loving and attentive parents suddenly become cold and abusive, a sweet and innocent child becomes a destructive and emotionless monster, trustworthy peacekeepers become pawns for a dangerous enemy.
For many decades, Invaders from Mars could only be seen in faded, scratched, and otherwise marred transfers of deteriorated prints. This year, for its 70th anniversary, Ignite Films released a gloriously restored edition culled from the best available elements on 4K and Blu-ray. Film Restoration Supervisor Scott MacQueen and his team have succeeded in a seemingly impossible task. For some, such an undertaking for a film like Invaders from Mars may seem frivolous, but films like this are as important to preserve for posterity as Lawrence of Arabia and Vertigo. Those films are big, great, and important of course, and perhaps objectively better films than Invaders from Mars, but every film is important to someone and for reasons that go beyond their place in film history.
Some years ago, Martin Scorsese was asked which films should be preserved and, to paraphrase his answer, he said something to the effect of “all of them.” He went on to cite The Creeping Terror (1964), widely considered one of the worst movies ever made, because it captures the people, place, and time it was created and is the only real record that any of those things ever existed. Similarly, Invaders from Mars (a far more competent and polished film than The Creeping Terror) captures the attitudes and anxieties of a world that no longer exists. It is a time capsule that can now be observed and studied for generations to come. In this age when movies are allowed to deteriorate due to age and neglect, lost in the shuffle of the massive amount of content available, or even being outright deleted for a tax payoff, it is gratifying that a film like this, that to many would be dismissed as an inconsequential genre movie, would receive such care in its restoration and preservation.
In Bride of Frankenstein, Dr. Pretorius, played by the inimitable Ernest Thesiger, raises his glass and proposes a toast to Colin Clive’s Henry Frankenstein—“to a new world of Gods and Monsters.” I invite you to join me in exploring this world, focusing on horror films from the dawn of the Universal Monster movies in 1931 to the collapse of the studio system and the rise of the new Hollywood rebels in the late 1960’s. With this period as our focus, and occasional ventures beyond, we will explore this magnificent world of classic horror. So, I raise my glass to you and invite you to join me in the toast.
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