Does watching two 1950s alien invasion movies on consecutive days constitute a kick?  Recently, I noticed The War of the Worlds (1953) on Amazon Prime.  In order to find it, I had to do a lot of scrolling.  One of the titles I passed in doing so was It Came from Outer Space (1953).  Since they came out in the same year, some comparisons are worth mentioning.  The former of these is loosely based on the work of famous science-fiction writer H. G. Wells.  The latter is . . . not, though it is apparently an adaptation of a script by competent author Ray Bradbury.  Today’s film is pioneering in its own right, being among the first 3D motion pictures to be released in theaters.  It is a little dull, and I am not sure why this story was chosen to debut this cinematic technology, but the production company, Universal International, was probably just eager to show off their shiny new gadget.  What unites them, and made such films scarier in the 1950s at the height of the Cold War, is the fear they instilled of that mysterious other lurking somewhere out there and coming to get you.  This one has the added shock of seeing familiar faces and friends converted against their wills to take part in some strange plot.  Speaking of which. . . .

Ellen Fields (Barbara Rush) is at the house of her boyfriend, author John Putnam (Richard Carlson), enjoying their evening when they look up in the sky and see It Came from Outer Space.  To them, “it” is a meteorite, and it has the amateur astronomer excited.  So jazzed is he by this event that he and Ellen awaken their neighbor, Pete Davis (Dave Willock), who happens to own a helicopter, to fly them to the crash site outside of their desert town.  Climbing up to the rim of the crater, John descends to the bottom where he is greeted by a cylindrical body that has embedded itself into the rock.  A hexagonal opening appears in the side, and gazing out of it is . . . something.  We see John from its perspective, and its perspective looks like somebody with a contact lens that is incorrectly floating on the surface of an eyeball.  Actually, eyeball is not a bad description of these creatures from another planet, as they only have one giant sight organ surrounded by a mostly bipedal body.  Before anything else can be done, the ground begins to quake and John has to scramble out before he is buried under rubble.  As he and Ellen drive back after their little adventure, they are confronted with a full view of one of the aliens, though it disappears as quickly as they spot it.  The next day, no one will believe him, except for Ellen, that there is an unidentified flying object (UFO) at the bottom of this fresh hole in the ground.  This includes his scientist friend who he had called to come investigate the occurrence.  Sheriff Matt Warren (Charles Drake) also remains unconvinced.  Just to verify for themselves, Ellen and John drive past where they had seen the creature.  On the way, they meet Frank (Joe Sawyer) and George (Russell Johnson), two men working on the powerlines along the road, asking if they had seen anything strange.  They deny it, but as they leave their worksite, they are stopped by an alien.  This turns out to be what begins to make Sheriff Warren believe that there might be something strange going on in Sand Rock, being spurred to action when Frank and George are reported as missing.  News of their disappearance prompts Sheriff Warren to call Ellen and John to the police station.  At one point, John notices a dazed Frank walking through town.  John follows this person and finds Frank and George in a darkened hall.  They are not themselves, however, and their behavior confirms what he had been told earlier, that these visitors from another planet can copy our likeness so as not to frighten us with their monstrous appearance.  John is told by them that he, and the rest of humanity have nothing to fear as long as we do not interfere with . . . whatever it is that they are doing.  It is never explicitly stated what they are doing on Earth, but they do make it clear that they did not mean to land here.  They are also trying to leave as soon as possible.  I guess they had some bad cheeseburgers?  I digress.  John reports what he has learned to Sheriff Warren, and the law enforcement officer favors rounding up a group of armed men to take back the missing people from those potential usurpers.  Sheriff Warren is not willing to take their word, as relayed to John, that the aliens, er . . . come in peace.  Hoping to avoid violence, John travels to the mine that connects to their crash site, only to find Ellen, too, has been copied by them.  She tries to stop John from meddling further, but is shot and killed by him.  He then enters the cavernous area where all the doubles are working on the spaceship, and they seem to be led by one with whom he shares a face.  John tells his extra-terrestrial twin that he will keep the sheriff and his posse away, allowing the aliens to leave, if they turn over the people they kidnapped.  With some reluctance, this arrangement is agreed upon, and John is reunited with Ellen.  The rest then make a run for the exit, finding some dynamite with which to collapse the entrance to the mine and prevent the posse from entering.  Satisfied, even though John had earlier punched Sheriff Warren in the face, they watch as the ship lifts off and flies back in the direction from which it came.

For being made in 1953, there are some neat effects in It Came from Outer Space.  I bet the 3D must have been really cool when it premiered, but it just made the colorized version I watched slightly off in its hues.  What interests this Catholic reviewer is the philosophical nature of the interactions between John and the aliens.  The visitors are leery of humans because they understand something that is probably universal in the truest sense of the word: we do not trust the unfamiliar.  It is this same attitude that is responsible for dwindling Mass attendance.  Trust and familiarity go hand-in-hand.  The fact that people, including many avowed Catholics, do not trust the Church, points to two things.  First, and this is a broad notion against which I have railed for year, is that Catholicism seems increasingly alien in our modern culture.  We are a religion with one foot firmly, and (hopefully) unchangingly planted in the ancient.  As such, we have difficulty making are teachings appear relevant, despite the fact that they are just as important today than they were a thousand years ago.  This also leads into my second issue, and that is that we are doing a poor job of teaching ourselves, much less the larger society around us, about our Faith.  The fact that stereotypes persist is as frustrating as John going around trying to get people to believe what he had seen with his own eyes.  And it is in this that we should have an inside track on winning hearts and minds to the Church.  Seeing is believing, as the old saying goes, and we have verifiable moments we can point to and show people the power of God.  One that comes to mind is the miracle of the sun at the last appearance of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal in 1917, an event that was captured on camera with thousands of people looking on, just like those gathered to see the ship lift off at the end of the movie.

I will admit this is a rather thin Catholic perspective on It Came from Outer Space.  At the same time, the older I get, the more I come to accept that it all works for His greater glory.  You just have to be willing to see it.  You may not be willing to see this movie, however.  It is pretty cheesy, but this is a function of the times in which it is made.  It does have some merit as a breakthrough film, if you can make it through the cheesiness.