31 Days of Halloween - It Conquered The World (1956) - With Venus Vegetable Spoilers

American International Pictures put out some great movies, like Masque of the Red Death. They also put out films that were complete dreck. And then, there are films like It Conquered the World. It's not very good, but it is entertaining. And some times, that's all you need, right?

Synopsis

Paul (Peter Graves) is the director of a US satellite program. Tom (Lee Van Cleef) is a fringe scientist who has been trying to get the US to shut down its space program. The two men are friends, although there relationship is a bit strained due to Tom's cold and aloof personality. It turns out that Tom, a genius who has grown disillusioned with the violent nature of humanity, has made contact with a group of super-intelligent beings on Venus. Using a radio set in his living room, he offers to facilitate their conquest of the Earth. In exchange, they will usher in an era of peace and emotion-free logic.

Beverly Garland and Lee Van Cleef share one of many tense moments.

One of the aliens hitches a ride on one of Paul's satellites. Once on Earth, the alien is able to shut down all power and communications. It then uses mind-control devices delivered by bat-like creatures to take control of key figures in the area of the space center. This includes Paul's wife Joan (Sally Fraser); when she tries to convert Paul, he kills her. Tom's wife Claire (Beverly Garland) takes matters into her own hands and sets out to kill the alien in a the remote cave he is hiding in.

She is killed by the creature, but Tom (who hears her death screams over the radio), Paul and a group of soldiers in the nearby woods, converge on the cave. The creature emerges. Tom kills it with a blow torch, although he is mortally wounded in the process. Paul gives a speech about how men have to find salvation within themselves. The end.

Analysis

Although the movie is obviously low-budget, it is not without its charms. Director Roger Corman keeps things moving briskly. Although there is a lot of dialogue, it never drags down the movie's pace. The cinematography by Fred West is workmanlike; nothing spectacular, but all the action is clear and there aren't any significant visual problems. The acting is actually pretty good. Peter Graves and Beverly Garland are the highlights; both are invested enough in their characters that they take the sometimes clunky dialogue and make it believable. Sally Fraser is also spunky enough, although she doesn't have a lot of screen time. I found Lee Van Cleef's performance to be a bit stiff. While he is supposed to be portraying someone who is basically a misanthrope who is also a borderline sociopath, some of his lines needed a more emotional delivery. This hurts the finale, because his last minute conversion to hero makes little sense.

It would be easy to attack the special effect, but effects technician Paul Blaisdell had to work with limited time, money and material. The bat-creatures that the alien invader uses actually look pretty menacing. Of course, as can be seen from the image to the right, the alien itself looks pretty silly. Blaisdell had an actual reason for the design - based on what was believed about Venus at the time, he assumed the creature was an intelligent fungus that grew in a hot, dark environment and was almost immobile. The problems with the design, however, are two-fold. First, the face looks goofy and not just to a modern viewer. Apparently, even the actors had a hard time keeping a straight face around it. The other problem was that Blaisdell assumed the creature would be mostly keep in the shadows and would be stationary. So, he designed it with these considerations in mind. For the finale, Corman insisted on an exterior scene in broad daylight. There are different explanations given for this, but they boil down to either a) showmanship or b) technical. The former explanation is that Corman thought the audience would want to see the alien and have it fight people at the end. The latter explanation is that the equipment needed to properly light the cave was inadvertently left in the studio on the day of the shoot and Corman had no time to reschedule. Either way, the final scenes are ludicrous.

Notes

Best Line: Peter Graves to Lee Van Cleef. "Your hands are human, but your mind is enemy." Uh, what?

Anyone interested in the story of Paul Blaisdell should check out Paul Blaisdell, Monster Maker: A Biography of the B Movie Makeup and Special Effects Artist by Randy Palmer. The book is well written and Blaisdell's story is fascinating.

Verdict

For what it is - a low-buget, quickly made movie - It Conquered the World is pretty entertaining. Yes, some of the effects are laughable, there are obvious continuity errors and some of the dialogue is poorly written. But the leads are all at least watchable and the film is fun in a "Late Show B-Movie" way. Check it out.

In fact, you can watch the full movie right here. Enjoy.