Invaders from Mars (1953)

Is Invaders from Mars the first of the paranoid alien invasion films of the '50s? It's the same year as It Came from Outer Space and three years earlier than Invasion of the Body Snatchers. What it shares with those two movies is the paranoid fear that your normal-looking neighbors and loved ones are actually the embodiment of an alien evil that is trying to take over not only the world but your very self. Invaders from Mars explores this paranoia from the point of view of a child whose parents have been taken over by invading Martians, giving it a very primal nightmare quality. It works on some of our deepest fears of isolation and abandonment and abuse.

The movie was directed by William Cameron Menzies, who is a fascinating figure in the classical Hollywood era. He has recently gotten love from Dave Kehr and David Bordwell. (Bordwell is strangely dismissive of Invaders from Mars. Maybe he just doesn't like science fiction.) Menzies is mostly known as an art director and production designer, perhaps most famously on Gone with the Wind. He only directed a few films, including an earlier science fiction film Things to Come (1936), based on the H.G. Wells novel. Menzies hit his stride in the late-silent era, designing several of Douglas Fairbanks' big budget spectaculars amongst many other great films, and what's striking to me about Invaders from Mars is how much it looks like a silent movie, particularly the Expressionist films of Weimar Germany.

( Many more stills below the cut )