It Came from Outer Space

Author and amateur astronomer John Putnam and schoolteacher Ellen Fields watch a large meteorite crash near the small town of Sand Rock, Arizona. They awaken a neighbor, who has a helicopter, and all three fly to the crash site. Putnam climbs down into the crater and notices a partially buried round object in the crater's pit. He comes to the realization, after he sees a six-sided hatchway close, that this isn't a meteorite but a large alien spaceship. The hatchway's noise starts a landslide that completely buries the craft. Putnam's story is later scoffed at by Sand Rock's sheriff and the local news media.

Even Ellen Fields is unsure about what to believe but still agrees to assist Putnam in his investigation. Over the next several days, local people disappear; a few return, but they act distant or appear somewhat dazed and not their usual selves. Convinced by these and other odd events, Sheriff Warren comes to believe Putnam's story that the meteorite is actually a crashed spaceship with alien inhabitants; he then organizes a posse to hunt down the invaders at their crash site. Putnam, however, hopes to reach a peaceful solution to the looming crisis. Alone, he enters a nearby abandoned mine, which he hopes will eventually connect to the now buried spaceship and its alien occupants.

Putnam finally discovers the spaceship and learns from the alien leader that they crashed on Earth by accident; the aliens appear benign and only plan to stay on Earth just long enough to repair their damaged craft and then continue on their voyage. The aliens' real appearance, when finally revealed to Putnam, is entirely non-human: they are large, single-eyed, almost jellyfish-like beings that seem to glide across the ground, leaving a glistening trail that soon vanishes. They are also able to shape shift into human form in order to appear human and move around Sand Rock, unobserved, in order to collect their much needed repair materials. To do this, they copy the human forms of the local townspeople that they have abducted. In doing so, however, they fail to reproduce the townspeople's exact personalities, leading to suspicion and eventually to the deaths of two of the aliens.

Now that they have been discovered, the aliens have decided to destroy themselves and their spaceship. Putnam reasons with them at length and convinces the alien leader to instead finish the repairs while he, as a sign of the aliens' good faith, takes the captives outside to the sheriff. To protect the aliens from the sheriff and his advancing posse, Putnam manages to seal off the mine in order to give them the time they still need to finish their spaceship repairs.

Shortly afterwards the alien spaceship finally leaves Earth. Putnam's fiancée Ellen asks him if they are gone for good. He responds "No, just for now. It wasn't the right time for us to meet. But there will be other nights, other stars for us to watch. They'll be back".

• Richard Carlson as John Putnam
• Barbara Rush as Ellen Fields
• Charles Drake as Sheriff Matt Warren
• Joe Sawyer as Frank Daylon
• Russell Johnson as George
• Kathleen Hughes as Jane, George's girl
• Alan Dexter as Dave Loring
• Dave Willock as Pete Davis, the pilot
• Robert Carson as Reporter Dugan
• George Eldredge as Dr. Snell
• Brad Jackson as Bob, Dr. Snell's assistant
• Warren MacGregor as Toby
• George Selk as Tom
• Edgar Dearing as Sam
• William Pullen as Deputy Reed
• Virginia Mullen as Mrs. Daylon
• Dick Pinner as Lober
• Whitey Haupt as Perry, a boy[3]

Drive-in advertisement from 1953.

The screenplay by Harry Essex, with input by Jack Arnold, was derived from an original and lengthy screen treatment by Ray Bradbury; screen legend says that Bradbury wrote the screenplay and Harry Essex merely changed the dialogue and took the credit.[4] Unusual among science fiction films of the era, the alien "invaders" were portrayed by Bradbury as creatures stranded on Earth and without malicious intent toward humanity. Bradbury said "I wanted to treat the invaders as beings who were not dangerous, and that was very unusual." He offered two story outlines to the studio, one with malicious aliens, the other with benign aliens. "The studio picked the right concept, and I stayed on."[5] In 2004 Bradbury published in one volume all four versions of his screen treatment for It Came From Outer Space.[6]

Filming took place on location in and around the California towns of Palmdale, Victorville, and the Mojave Desert,[2] as well as on Universal's sound stages.

The film's uncredited music score was composed by Irving Gertz, Henry Mancini, and Herman Stein.[7]

Universal's make-up department submitted two alien designs to studio executives for consideration; the rejected design was saved and later used as the "Metaluna Mutant" in Universal's 1955 science fiction film This Island Earth.[7]

The fiery special effects created for the crashing alien spacecraft consisted of a wire-mounted iron ball with dorsal fin, which had hollowed out "windows" all around for the burning magnesium inside.[7]

The Arizona setting and the alien abduction of telephone lineman and two other characters are fictionalized story elements taken from Bradbury's younger life when his father moved the family to Tucson, where he worked as a telephone lineman.[4]

Urban legend has it that an extra in an Army staff sergeant's uniform seen at the "meteor" crash site is comedy writer-performer Morey Amsterdam.[7] While the briefly glimpsed extra does indeed resemble Amsterdam, no hard evidence (e.g., cast call bureau records, interviews with Amsterdam) has ever confirmed this is actually him. The most recent DVD re-release of It Came from Outer Space comes with a documentary, The Universe According to Universal. It was written and directed by David J. Skal and has audio commentary by Tom Weaver, in which Weaver notes the extra's resemblance to Morey Amsterdam.

It Came from Outer Space was released in June 1953;[7] by the end of the year it had accrued US$1.6 million in distributors' US and Canadian rentals,[8] making it the year's 75th biggest earner.[9][Note 1]

Barbara Rush won the Golden Globe award in 1954 as most promising female newcomer for her role in the film.[7]

The film was nominated for AFI's Top 10 Science Fiction Films list.[10]

Patricia Bosworth, writing in 1992, counted It Came from Outer Space as one of a number of '50s Hollywood anti-Communist propaganda films in which "aliens from outer space serve as metaphors for the Soviet menace".[11] Bosworth's inclusion of the Korean War-era film as anti-Communist propaganda is at odds with both The American Film Institute and story author Ray Bradbury, who stated, "I wanted to treat the invaders as beings who were not dangerous, and that was very unusual". No Earthlings are killed or injured in the film by the aliens. If they were intended to be stand-ins for the Soviet Union/Communists, as Bosworth professes, their presence in an Arizona town is antithetical to how Communist surrogates were portrayed in Hollywood science fiction films during the Cold War. Bosworth blames her father's 1959 suicide on his being targeted by the Hollywood Blacklist; her father, defense lawyer Bartley Crum, died of an alcohol and barbiturate overdose.[12]

Universal Studios digitally restored It Came From Outer Space, and in October 2016 released it on Blu-ray. The film is presented in its original 3D with three-track stereophonic sound. Also included is a non-3D "flat" version in mono sound and the 3D and flat theatrical release trailers. Rounding out the Blu-ray package is a documentary on Universal's 3D films and a "making of" voice-over commentary track.

A made-for-TV sequel entitled It Came from Outer Space II was released in 1996, starring Brian Kerwin, Elizabeth Peña, Jonathan Carrasco, Adrian Sparks, Bill McKinney, Dean Norris, Lauren Tewes, Mickey Jones and Howard Morris. Written by Jim and Ken Wheat, it was directed by Roger Duchowny, and was his final work before retiring. The story is essentially a remake of the first film, with former small town resident Jack Putnam (Kerwin) returning and witnessing an alien craft landing. Strange things then begin to happen, with his neighbors behaving oddly and the power going off and on.

Writing for The Radio Times, Alan Jones gave the film one star out of five and called it a "lacklustre update" which was "proof positive that 40 years of technical advances can't compensate for poor production values, boring characters and a complete lack of thrills." He summarised: "File this under 'don't bother'."[19] Leonard Maltin called the original "intriguing" and "remarkably sober for its era, with crisp performances and real restraint, even in its use of 3-D" and the 1996 effort "a much inferior remake, rather than the sequel the title suggests".[20] In the New York Daily News, David Bianculli wrote that "the fact that this is a remake not a sequel, yet carries the suffix II anyway, is a clue about how clearly the makers of this new version were thinking when they made it. In other words, not very."[21]

• It Came from Outer Space is one of the classic films mentioned in the opening theme ("Science Fiction/Double Feature") of the 1973 musical The Rocky Horror Show and its 1975 film adaptation.[7]
• it is also referenced in the film Night of the Comet (1984).
• The narration in the Siouxsie and the Banshees song "92 Degrees" from the 1986 album Tinderbox contains dialog from the film.[22]
• In Metal Gear Solid 3, Para-Medic mentions the film in one of her conversations with Naked Snake when the player saves the game.

• 1953 in film
• List of 3D films pre-2005
• List of science fiction films of the 1950s

Informational notes

Citations

Bibliography

• Bradbury, Ray. It Came From Outer Space. Edited by Donn Albright. Colorado Springs: Gauntlet Press, 2004. ISBN 978-1-887368-66-7.
• Gebert, Michael. The Encyclopedia of Movie Awards, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996. ISBN 0-668-05308-9.
• Rux, Bruce. Hollywood Vs. the Aliens. Berkeley, California: Frog, Ltd. (North Atlantic Books), 1997. ISBN 1-883319-61-7.
• Strick, Philip. Science Fiction Movies. London: Octopus Books Limited, 1976. ISBN 0-7064-0470-X.
• Warren, Bill. Keep Watching the Skies: American Science Fiction Films of the Fifties, 21st Century Edition. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2009. ISBN 0-89950-032-3.
• Weller, Sam. The Bradbury Chronicles. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. ISBN 0-06-054581-X.
• Willis, Don, ed. Variety's Complete Science Fiction Reviews. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1985. ISBN 0-8240-6263-9.

Wikiquote has quotations related to It Came from Outer Space.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to It Came from Outer Space.

• Official website
• It Came from Outer Space at the American Film Institute Catalog
• It Came from Outer Space at IMDb
• It Came from Outer Space at the TCM Movie Database
• It Came from Outer Space at AllMovie
• Rerecording of It Came from Outer Space soundtrack