It Came from Outer Space **** (1953, Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, Charles Drake) – Classic Movie Review 2,443

Jack Arnold’s 1953 black-and-white sci-fi film It Came from Outer Space is notable as the first in 3D from Universal. Barbara Rush won a Golden Globe as most promising female newcomer.

Director Jack Arnold’s 1953 black-and-white science fiction film It Came from Outer Space is notable as the first in the 3D process from Universal-International. It sees an alien spacecraft crash-land in the US desert and an astronomer sets out to find the aliens who can turn into humans while they repair their ship.

Arnold uses the Arizona desert locations, the 3D photography and Ray Bradbury’s 1950s paranoia body-swap idea (in the manner of Invasion of the Body Snatchers) to chilling effect in the first sci-fi film from Bradbury’s work. Harry Essex bases his screenplay on Bradbury’s original story treatment called The Meteor.

The story is about an astronomer (Richard Carlson) and his schoolteacher fiancée (Barbara Rush) who see a large fiery object crash to Earth while stargazing in the Arizona desert. The astronomer discovers an alien spacecraft at the crash site just before it is buried by a landslide. But when he tells this story to the sheriff and local newspaper he is branded a loony. And then the neighbouring townsfolk begin to act strangely…

Maybe surprisingly, it all still looks and seems rather impressive, with an underlying seriousness of purpose in the screenplay and dignity in the performances that set it apart from some of the daft sci-fi movies of the era.

Richard Carlson (as John Putnam), Barbara Rush (as Ellen Fields) and Charles Drake (as Sheriff Matt Warren) star in this convincing movie, a money-maker and style-setter of its day, remarkable at the time in that the alien invaders are shown as creatures stranded on Earth without malicious intent towards Earthlings.

Also in the cast are Kathleen Hughes, Russell Johnson and Joseph Sawyer.

Barbara Rush (born January 4, 1927) won a shared 1954 Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer – Female. Rush was tied with Pat Crowley for Forever Female (1953) and Money from Home (1953) and Bella Darvi for The Egyptian (1954) and Hell and High Water (1954).

Bradbury recalled: ‘I wanted to treat the invaders as beings who were not dangerous, and that was very unusual.’ He gave the studio two story outlines, one with malicious aliens, the other with benign aliens. ‘The studio picked the right concept, and I stayed on.’

In 2004 Bradbury published in one volume all four versions of his screen treatment for the film.

It is shot in and around the California towns of Palmdale and Victorville, and the Mojave Desert, and at Universal studios.

Universal’s make-up department came up with two alien designs. The rejected design was saved and used as the Metaluna Mutant in Universal’s 1955 This Island Earth.

The special effects for the crashing alien spacecraft consisted of a wire-mounted iron ball with dorsal fin that had hollowed-out windows for the burning magnesium inside.

The Arizona setting and the alien abduction of telephone lineman and two other characters are fictionalised from Bradbury’s life after his father moved the family to Tucson, working as a phone lineman, though he was not the victim of an alien abduction.

The uncredited score is by Irving Gertz, Henry Mancini and Herman Stein.

Ray Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012).

It Came from Outer Space 2, starring Brian Kerwin and Elizabeth Peña, followed in 1995. Despite the title, it is a remake of the 1953 film.

The cast are 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, Alan Dexter as Dave Loring, Dave Willock as Pete Davis, Robert Carson as Reporter Dugan, George Eldredge as Dr. Snell, Brad Jackson as Bob, 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, and Whitey Haupt as Perry.

Barbara Rush died on March 31, 2024, at the age of 97.

She starred in When Worlds Collide, Flaming Feather, Bigger Than Life, The Young Philadelphians, The Young Lions, Robin and the 7 Hoods, and Hombre, and was a TV star in Peyton Place

She was married to Jeffrey Hunter (1950 – 1955), publicist Warren Cowan (1959 – 1969) and sculptor Jim Gruzalski (1970 – 1973). She had two children, Christopher Hunter and Claudia Cowan (with Cowan).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2,443

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