Quantcast Horror Film History — Horror Films in the 1950s - part 3

Horror Movies in the 1950s (3): Flying saucers, Kevin Arnold, Roswell, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Plan 9 From Outer Space

They Came From Outer Space

"That unidentified flying objects have been present since the dawn of man is an undeniable fact. They are not only described repeatedly in the Bible, but were also the subject of cave paintings made thousands of years before the Bible was written. And a strange procession of weird entities and flying creatures has been with us just as long. When you view the ancient references you are obnliged to conclude that the presence of these objects and beings is a normal condition for this planet. These things, these other intelligences, or OINTS as Ivan Sanderson has labelled them, either reside here but somehow remain concealed from us, or they do not exist at all, and are actually special aberrations of the human mind - tulpas, hallucinations, psychological constructs, momentary realisations of energy from that dimension beyond the reach of our senses and even beyond the reach of our scientific instruments. They are not from outer space. There is no need for them to be. They have always been here."

From "The Mothman Prophecies" by John A. Keel (1975)

" I saw what I saw. And no one can change my mind."

Kenneth Arnold, first documented sighting of an Unidentified Flying Object, 1947

On 24 June 1947, "businessman-pilot" Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine strange, reflective objects as he flew his plane over Mt Rainier one clear summer evening (coining the term "flying saucer"). The US government denied all knowledge or responsibility and showed little interest in Arnold's report, thus generating a million and one conspiracy theories. This, coupled with the infamous Roswell Incident, meant that by the end of the year the very real possibility that we were under observation by OINTs was part of public consciousness. The Unidentified Flying Object phenomenon was born. And horror had a new set of faces.

Arnold's Sighting

  • UFO reports from various newspapers of the time
  • Overview of the case
  • Did Arnold really see Weather balloons? Pelicans? Try the alternative theories at Debunker.com

The Roswell Incident

A "flying disc" crashed at Roswell, New Mexico on and was subsequently recoved by the US Air Force. It was a weather balloon and nothing spooky, space-related or in the slightest bit weird happened.

- 'Official' view

A spaceship containing real live aliens crashed at Roswell, New Mexico and was seen by local farmers before a number of unidentified G-Men (the original Men In Black) turned up, told everyone "Nothing to see" and recovered the ship and crew. A whole secret installation (Area 51) was set up in the desert to study the craft and its inhabitants, and this alien technology is what helped America win the space race. Anyone who has tried to uncover the cover-up has been offed. There are links to the Kennedy Assassination. The US government has since contacted and been in liaison with aliens, and done lots of deals where "earth test subjects" (abductees, mutilated cattle etc) are exchanged for information.

- UFO Underground view

As the second version is far more interesting, and offers far more options for movies, comics etc, this is the version which has passed into popular consciousness, and is a cornerstone of modern ufology. It has formed the basis for everything from Plan 9 From Outer Space (supposedly The Worst Movie Ever Made, more of which later) to Independence Day to the TV series Roswell, as well as major story arcs on The X-Files. In 1995 London businessman Ray Santilli stunned the world by claiming to have genuine footage of two autopsies carried out on aliens retrieved from the crash site. After convincing major TV companies (and audiences) around the world that his footage was real, he was denounced as a hoax (see below). Or was he? Question marks remain over why anyone would go to such lengths to make a few hundred thousand bucks. Ufologists have argued for years about what happened in July 1947, and 2007's Witness To Roswell, a collaboration between investigators Donald Schmitt and Tom Carey claimed to be a 60th anniversary definitive account. It sparked a great deal more controversy, and it seems the mystery will never be solved. Whatever the truth, the Roswell Incident has continued to rumble in the back of popular consciousness, and together with Arnold's sighting, has provided the basis for much of the subsequent representations of aliens and their craft.

Roswell Links

Keep Watching The Skies

With flying saucers firmly ensconced on newspaper front pages and radio talk shows, it wasn't long before the movie world appropriated their drivers as a new cast of villains. Science Fiction had long made use of aliens as a threat, as reflected in the so-called 'Golden Age' of SciFi, running from the late 1930s to the 1950s. However, this golden sci-fi was restricted to the printed page - either pulp novel or comic book - as the movie-making technology simply wasn't there to transfer the horrors from page to screen. However, technological advances, coupled with wild public interest, and the economic need to drag teens into the drive-ins, meant that by the mid-1950s, alien monsters were looming large on the silver screen. Technology, instead of being offscreen, in the form of lights, cameras etc, was firmly onscreen, in the form of shimmering space ships and deadly ray guns.

There is a strong crossover - as there is in the 1980s - during the 1950s between horror and science fiction. Horror, as suggested earlier, had shot itself in the foot by lampooning its great icons at the end of the 1940s. By uniting with science fiction, by wholeheartedly embracing the Atomic Age, there were the beginnings of a rebirth of credibility. As in the 1980s, horror embraced sci-fi in the 1950s as a way of critiquing society, of tellingly darkly allegorical tales where the threatening elements in society were given, not the faces of mad scientists or supernatural monsters, but Creatures From Outer Space. Aliens, having no real form or particular set of characteristics, could represent anything a film-maker wanted them to.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (1956) represents aliens as... well, human beings. Not just any human beings but next door neighbours, the kid down the street, the people of whom the fabric of your daily life consists. Based on the 1955 novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, it posits a very simple, very terrifying theory: THEY have taken over. THEY look just like you. THEY have total control. THEY want to take you over now, and THEY are coming to get you. Often seen as a parable about communism in the McCarthy era, Invasion... works on a much deeper level than petty politics. The central discussion at the heart of the film revolves around the difference between a real human and a pod human "He looks just like uncle Joe, and he acts just like uncle Joe, but he ain't Uncle Joe". The film tries to pin down what it is to be human, and the answer is a vague indefineable something that only humans can recognise and pod aliens can't replicate. The pod-humans are scary enough, bland, placid creatures that, let's face it, wouldn't actually raise much of an eyebrow if you met them on a street in small-town America. The pods are scarier still - oozing and throbbing in a greenhouse. At least Miles can deal with them using a gardening tool, which is more than can be said for the deep feeling of paranoia the film leaves you with. Remade twice (with Donald Sutherland in 1978 and by Abel Ferrara in 1994), this is a giant of a movie in both the sci-fi and horror genres. The low budget is spent wisely - special effects are minimal, yet chilling and the performances are fine. It's stands in movie history as one of the best horror/sci-fi films of the 1950s, and has been much discussed, both as an early example of Don Siegel's work (he went on to direct Dirty Harry and many other movies starring Clint Eastwood) and as a political allegory. Much has been made of the brainwashing theme and its relationship to both McCarthyism and the Red Peril. It was remade in 1978 starring Donald Sutherland and, rather lamentably, in 2007 with Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman in the main roles.

Plan 9 From Outer Space

At the other end of anyone's scale, but made in the same year, Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space deals with the same themes. Kind of. Aliens are hovering above Los Angeles, and are reanimating the 'recently dead' in order to form an army to bring down the governments of the world, who ignore the aliens' presence, and persist in their blind development of destructive weaponry. Dubbed The Worst Film Ever Made, Plan 9... demonstrates how easy it was to go wrong with the sci-fi/horror crossover - if you didn't have the budget for the special effects, or the sense (as Don Siegel had) to stay away from them as much as possible. Originally titled "Grave Robbers From Outer Space" Bela Lugosi was slated to star - but he died 5 months before filming was due to begin. Undeterred, Ed Wood left Lugosi's name in the credits and got a local chiropractor to play the part (with a cloak over his face). Lugosi appears briefly at the beginning of the film, as Wood used up some random footage he had shot of the actor a year or so previously. The rest of the film is a similar ragbag - long philosophical speeches from "aliens" (although suspiciously humanoid ones) about the essentially destructive nature of huamns, dodgy flying saucers wobbling around on the end of strings, Vampira (who had been sacked from her TV presenting job for suspected communism) lurching around in a graveyard of cardboard tombstones, the "army" of three reanimated zombies, the interior of the alien space ship which manages to put corners in a saucer... the list goes on. The film's production values are breathlessly low, but Wood's personal hedonism (he was said to type faster drunk than he did sober) and love for moviemaking shine through. This is D-movie stuff, but it has endured as a cult classic and as a perfect example of how NOT to make a movie.

 

Other Useful Links

For a range of movie poster art from this era, try Vintage Movie Posters