1953 Movie: Invaders From Mars

Last night I indulged myself by watching one of my favorite classic UFO movies called “Invaders From Mars”. It was produced in 1953, directed by William Cameron Menzies, written by Richard Blake, and starred Helena Carter, Arthur Franz, and Jimmy Hunt.

This movie, Invaders From Mars is a favorite amongst friends and family as it would be re-released in theaters while I was growing up and at the drive-ins. The television commercials were eerie as the trailer had all the elements that would make a kid want to make a bee line to the movies. It broke a lot of ground in the Martian invasion, UFO and flying saucer genres.

It featured then, what many today call the alien abduction phenomenon almost 15 years before the famous Barney and Betty Hill story that appeared in LOOK magazine in the early 1960s. The story had all the elements, people kidnapped, implants put into people’s brains, government conspiracies and the coolest, eeriest looking alien overlord type that still stands up today regarding make up and special effects. Invaders From Mars was way ahead of it’s time and on a modest filming budget still has the chills and surrealism the film achieved even in today’s high definition age.

Great plot, lots of heroic action and focuses on the story of a young boy who sees a flying saucer land in a field near his home. Soon, people begin disappearing and return with strange behavior and the boy, David, notices they’ve got a mark on the backs of their necks. David ends up at the police station after a neighborhood girl is abducted and sets fire to her home. David’s father and the girl’s father both work on a top secret project at a nearby base as do several of the people in the town. At the station David’s wild story of flying saucers and strange people puts him in a cell where a beautiful health care worker played by Helena Carter arrives and takes pity on the boy. David’s parents arrive, now under the power of the Martians to retrieve him but Dr. Pat Blake (Carter), refuses. Soon the police chief and some military brass are under the Martian’s control and it’s up to Dr. Carter, David, and Dr. Stuart Kelston, played by Arthur Franz, to race against time to alert the authorities and thwart the Martians. Yes, Invaders From Mars has it all except the mush.

If you haven’t seen Invaders From Mars you’re missing out. Yes there was a remake in the 1980s which was faithful to the original but the 1953 classic can’t be touched. I bring this up because I’ve seen several edited versions of this movie over the years and didn’t realize that it had been altered several times. There are several with different endings, one that was way ahead of the Twilight Zone and EC Comics ironic-twist-at-the-end formula, but in the version I saw last night on Netflix, there was an added scene I had not known existed and it blew me away.

In this version of Invaders From Mars, the filmmakers added footage to explain the area of UFOlogy and it was quite alarming. The sequence takes place amongst the three principal characters of David, Dr. Blake, and Dr. Kelston who runs the local observatory where Jimmy, an amateur astronomer likes to frequent. Kelston it turns out had been studying UFOs and goes into a lengthy, quite accurate and broad explanation about UFOs that looks like one of those 1950s educational films. I mean he really goes into depth to the point he actually makes a convincing argument for the alien visitation or extraterrestrial hypothesis. He covers the infamous “Lubbock Lights” story with photos, the case of Capt. Thomas F. Mantell of the Kentucky Air National Guard whose plane crashed while in pursuit of a UFO in January 1948. A highly publicized case at the time as theories of “death rays” were tossed about as an explanation to Mantell’s death. Not all the data in this particular scene is accurate science and has some speculation that by today’s standards of UFOlogy might not hold up but it’s amazing that the producers went to such lengths with this particular segment. In addition, there is something in this movie that most miss. At no time do the “invaders” state that they’re from outer space! It’s the military and the scientists who assume so. In a scene where the invaders are asked about their leader, the creepy bodiless octopus head in a bubble, the invaders state that their leader is the epitome of human evolution. Note, didn’t say “Martian”. Get the picture yet?

That added footage came after the main story had been filmed and one can see that the character David had grown a bit during the time period. This scene is just the extra punch that makes Invaders From Mars that must-have UFO movie alongside such classics as “Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story Of Flying Saucers”, “The Bamboo Saucer”, and “Earth vs The Flying Saucers” featuring the great Ray Harryhausen’s special effects.

So hunt around for the version of Invaders From Mars that I’m mentioning which according to the IMDB (Internet Movie Database) which you can read by clicking HERE. I won’t go into the endings of the three versions, American, European, and re-edited American versions as the endings are a surprise. So do yourself a treat and hunt for all three versions and enjoy a classic in UFO culture that stands the test of time.

Here you can see the original theatrical trailer for Invaders From Mars: