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Red Skies at Night
Call me Yankee Doodle Dandy, but I’m in a patriotic mood, with it being the Fourth of July weekend and all.
When you couple that with the recent news headline domination by Russian spy rings, it’s an ideal time to go old school and tap into some good old fashioned Cold War sci-fi from the 1950s.
So, I secured a copy of one of the hallmarks of 1950s commienoia, William Cameron Menzies’ 1953 opus Invaders from Mars.
Let me run things down for you. This film has everything that Uncle Sam would approve of in a parable about the Red scourge: Interstellar marauders that hide underground and employ mind control on hapless U.S. citizens. A cheeky young protagonist whose pluck, determination and belief in the American Way ultimately convinces the U.S. military that there just might be interstellar marauders hiding underground and attacking hapless U.S. citizens. A cornucopia of U.S. tank footage that would make General Patton wet his pants. And a giant alien baby head in a goldfish bowl with an unfortunate resemblance to Howard Dean.
All of this drama delivered in that stiff patois characteristic of overwrought 1950s science fiction.
Damn, I love America.
Boy hero David MacLean wakes up in the middle of the night during a thunder storm to witness an honest-to-gosh UFO land outside his family’s home. Dad, responding to the boy’s troubled cries, eventually goes to check things out. And then Dad checks out, as he falls into the hands of the aliens who plant a mind probe in his brain.
Dad returns home with a red sore at the base of his neck and in an angry stupor, looking like he spent a few too many nights at the Overlook Hotel. From there, things turn south as various townspeople fall prey to the aliens, including David’s mom, the police chief and an Army general. Even a little girl, Kathy Wilson, is not spared the ignominy of having her brain carjacked by the cosmic commies.
Fortunately, David is able to secure the aid of an astronomer and a beautiful health care professional. With their help, he’s able to defy logic and actually convince the military that them thar hills is loaded with alien bastards.
The military investigates and comes to the conclusion that they need to roll in a ton of tanks and start blowing things up. I tell you, there’s not much that makes me more proud as an American than hearing some gravelly voiced commander shout with full-hearted gusto, “Blast ‘em!”
Damn, I love America.
We learn through the course of action that the aliens came to Earth to destroy the nascent U.S. atomic space program by which we could send nuclear weapons to the stars. To scuttle our capabilities, the aliens sent their mind-controlled human puppets to attempt blowing up a top secret rocket; they burned down the home and attempted an assassination of one of our top scientists; and they killed several Hollywood B movie actors.
And you wonder why Ronald Reagan had it in for the commies.
The film concludes with the military rescuing the boy and the beautiful health care professional from the villainous clutches of the aliens, then blowing up the subterranean ship. We are treated to a hallucinatory montage of the film’s highlights as the boy, running from the blast area, reminisces about all the strange goings-on.
As the ship detonates, David wakes up in his bed. Was it all a dream? He goes to his parents’ room and they tell him to go back to sleep. Returning to his room, he looks out the window. And lo and behold, he sees a UFO land outside his family’s home. Eerie! But you got to love twist sci-fi endings, right?
I know you probably expect me to body slam the film for its cheesy effects (there were plenty) or its wooden characterizations (plenty of those, too). But I enjoyed it. It put me in touch with my inner John Wayne and riled me up. And I don’t mean The Searchers John Wayne, but rather Stagecoach John Wayne.
I do, however, need to ding the film on one major faux pas.
One of the scenes follows David’s mind-controlled old man as he aims to carry out a nefarious act of dastardliness. We cut to a scientist in a lab, messing around with test tubes. One of the lab flunkies comes in and passes on his condolences to the scientist for the loss of his daughter – at this point we learn the scientist is Dr. Bill Wilson, the main man behind the atomic rocket program as well as the father of the little girl who died after the aliens blew her mind-control device.
The flunkie remarks that he’s surprised to see Dr. Wilson working at the lab, given that his little girl just died, to which the good doctor remarks something along the lines of, “Yes it’s too bad, but the show must go on.”
So I’m thinking, obviously the doc is another alien-controlled sap. He must be, to be so callous and robotic. It made sense, since all the other people that the cosmic commies got their hands on turned into emotionless monsters.
But no, David’s mind-controlled dad shows up and tries to assassinate the doctor. So it became clear they weren’t working the same side.
Dr. Bill Wilson wasn’t an alien puppet. He was just some jerk with no freakin’ priorities.
I was like, really? You’ve got to be kidding. What lout heads to the office after the death of his only child? C’mon. If this guy is supposed to be some paradigm of scientific prowess, if he’s on our side, then what are we fighting for? Clearly we’re no better than the aliens or their puppets.
If that’s the best the doctor could muster emotionally, no wonder the 1960s were so generationally turbulent and rebellious. If I was a kid of that era, I’d be PO’d, too.
This obvious lack of character development aside, I think I really enjoyed the film. And like I said, any time you get the U.S. military blasting communists in the guise of space aliens, count me in.
Blast ‘em!
Damn, I love America. Happy birthday!
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