Invaders from Mars (1953)

I was only a year old when this movie came out, but I saw it on TV when I was around 8 years old, and it made a deep impression on me. In fact, when they brought out that long needle, my sister and I hid behind the couch and screamed for our mother to come turn off the TV! As a result, I did not know how the movie ended until I saw it again as a teenager. The special effects may seem cheesy to the jaded audiences of today, but they were effective enough to give me nightmares for years. (In one dream I am being carried by my own mother, who is walking stiffly, with a fixed smile.) I believe what makes it work is that the entire film is seen from the point of view of the boy. The director capitalizes on the insecurity of young children, and the way they relate to the world around them. All the best horror and science fiction movies succeed not because of CGI, costumes, rubber prostheses and fake blood, but because they focus on basic human fears and insecurities.

Fmovies: Lots of positive and negative feedback for this film, and I can understand why. Whether we want to admit it or not, nostalgia does have an impact on how we view things. As someone between the two generations(early 30's at this time), I can understand how I have put special importance on things I watched as a child. I know that some of these films were not too good but they mean't a lot to me. I also know that I was the kind of person that watched older films and appreciated them if they were good, and watched newer films and appreciated them if they were good. The biggest problem with many younger viewers today is that they do not look at a film in a context of when it was made, nor do they look at the most important aspect of the film which is what message is the film trying to relate....NOT how does it look in relating its message. We as a society are too caught up with presentation and other superficial things that sometimes we ignore what the core of something is. Anyway...enough philosophizing. This film is a good film period. Yep, it is cheaply made. Yep, it is filled with lots of stock footage, particularly the battle scenes which take place at night but footage takes place during day. Yep, it has mediocre acting. I won't argue those point because they are accurate. But those are only a part of the film...and for this film at least a very small part. This film has style and substance. Director William Cameron Menzies WAS a great director. He directed the science fiction classic Things To Come in the 30's which was a visionary masterpiece. He made this film fun to watch as he incorporated German expressionistic sets into his small-town simple story of a boy that knows aliens have landed on Earth in his back yard. The young boy played by Jimmy Hunt does a fine job in his role. The messages the film relates, however, are for me at least the core of the film....watch out for the ordinary....listen to children.....conformity is dangerous. This film is saying so much...give it a chance without worrying about window-dressing! And a final note...Long Live Morris Ankrum in film...I like him in this movie!

A little boy is the star of this film, and he does a fine job acting. Jimmy Hunt is his name, and he didn't have a big career acting, "retiring" at the end of the following year (1954). He was a decent child actor, as he shows here. He did come back to be part of the remake in 1986, playing the police chief and uttering one ironic and inside-joke line.

I thought the best part of this 1953 sci-fi classic was the beginning where Hunt really took center stage as the kid who saw a Martian UFO crash-land in a nearby area and then saw what the aliens did to his parents and others. I appreciated the fact the film didn't overdo the "we-don't-believe-the-dumb kid-angle. I presumed they were going to go on and on about that, but they didn't. He got a good ally soon and it wasn't too long where people woke up to what was happening. This was made in the era, unlike the last few decades, in which Hollywood portrayed the U.S. military as the good guys.

There is no need to go into story details. The fun of the film is the corny lines here and there and, of course, the horrible special-effects, some of which will make you laugh out loud.

This was meant to scare kids 55 years ago but now, as adults, we just look at these films as "campy" or "cheesy" entertainment to give us laughs, and keep us entertained. For the most part, this film delivered in those areas. You can't take any of it seriously because it's too hokey for that. I was sorry to see them use stock footage. That really wasn't needed because the story and acting were acceptable enough, and the dialog dumb enough to be entertaining. Still, don't expect a "masterpiece," or something that is so bad, it's great. It's kind of somewhere in the middle.

Generally speaking, I enjoyed this film, but after hearing some rave reviews, expected a little more. My major complaint - and it only one - is that it lags halfway through, until the last 20-or-so minutes.

Invaders from Mars fmovies. Did you know this movie was almost lost forever rotting away in a film file at a tv studio in California I believe.There was just one copy left and it was deteriating badly! Thanks to a man called Wade Williams (one of the producers in 86 awful remake) who ran a movie theater in Kansas City went all over the country in the seveties looking for this film. He like myself grew up watching this movie in the early sixties when it just literally disapeared off the face of the earth.This info is based on a Star Log magazine story in 1977 and a personal phone call to Wade Williams that same year.

I did finally get to see the movie in early 1981 when it was shown on tv 38 Boston and was blown away to see it again.I have the movie on vhs and plan to get on dvd soon.I grew up the late fifties and early sixties and this is as well as 3 Stooges Have Rocket Will Travel and Target Earth are part of my all time favorites.I guess you had to haved lived thru that era to really appreciate these movies.

Invaders From Mars is, arguably, a cult classic. William Cameron Menzies, of "Gone With The Wind" and "The Thief of Baghdad" and "Things to Come" fame puts his artistic expertise to work in creating a world of impending doom, seen through the eyes of an 11 year old boy.

It is because of this point-of-view that lends a nightmarish quality to a struggle this boy encounters when he tries to convince the authorities that a spaceship landed in a sandpit behind his house.

The sense of "something's not right" with Mom and Dad starts as the boy's parents are sucked below the sandpit into the evil arms of the Martians, made into zombie-spies, and returned to the surface. The boy's fear mounts when local police and even high-ranking military fall prey to the Martians' mind control.

Through the assistance of a well trusted astrophysicist and a school psychologist the boy convinces the local Army base to make a beach head in the boy's back yard... and the battle to return the boy's parents and the villagers to normalcy begins. Eventually, the boy and the psychologist confront the Martian intelligence (midget Luce Potter as a convincing body-less head with tentacle-like arms in a glass sphere). In a poor "race against time" sequence in which the little boy and psychologist are rescued from the spaceship before it blows up, the film reaches its climax to the cacophonous din of artillery explosions, and Raoul Kraushaar's eerie, disharmonious a capella choir.

Many criticize the poor production values, the over use of stock footage, the idiotic costumes, and the fact that the film had TWO endings (one popularized in Great Britain, one here in U.S.A.).

Yes, I agree that production and set values were cheap (green condoms to represent molten rock "bubbles" in the tunnels and obvious zippers in the velour-like jump suits of the Martian slaves, to name a few.)

Nevertheless, Menzies applies forced perspective to his sets, and the skillful use of background mattes to lend an unearthly tone to the scene Remember folks, this is 1953... a time when Communism infiltration and subordination of Mr. and Mrs. Joe America was the chief "fear of the day". There are few other films of that period that deftly portrayed this paranoia so aptly as "Invaders From Mars"

If one overlooks the "rough" edges of its obviously low budget, one can still appreciate the helplessness, fear and mistrust the little boy develops as his parents and others are turned into "tools of the Martians". Is it truly a nightmare, or did it actually happen? The viewer is left to make that choice.

Invaders From Mars is one of the best science fiction movies of the 1950's. I have seen this several times and never tire of it.

A haunting atmosphere throughout and a good musical score keep it going. It is shot in glorious colour and the special effects are pretty good despite the low budget.

The acting in this is excellent, especially from young Jimmy Hunt and 50's regulars Arthur Franz and Morris Ankrum are reunited in this as they starred alongside each other in Flight to Mars (1951). Extensive stock military footage doesn't spoil this at all.

I enjoyed this movie very much and it has gained a cult following.

Rating: 4 and a half stars out of 5.