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A meteor hits earth somewhere in the middle of the desert, but when
hobby astronomer John Putnam (Richard Carlson) arrives at the scene and is
the first one to climb down the crater, he finds the meteor is actually a
spaceship ... however, before he can show the spaceship to anyone else, a
landslide covers it under tons and tons of rocks. Still, he keeps on
telling everyone about the spaceship he saw, until everyone thinks him a
fool, including his girlfriend Ellen (Barbara Rush). Then though, when
driving through the desert, an alien crosses Ellen's and John's path,
which makes a believer out of her ... to a point whjere she is neglecting
her job as a school teacher to help John gather evidence ...
Soon enough, the aliens start taking over several people in the village
John lives in and start staling electronic equipment, but when Ellen and
John try to report this to the Sheriff (Charles Drake), he
(understandably) refuses to believe them.
Eventually though, Ellen is abducted too by the aliens, and one alien
gets into contact with John, threatening Ellen's life should John continue
to intervene - but the alien also promises to do neither Ellen nor the
people they have (temporarily) taken over any harm, they just crashlanded
on earth and now need to make repairs on their spaceship - and to that end
they need to take over humans.
John is inclined to believe the story of the aliens, and since they
have his girlfriend hostage, there's little he can do anyhow - however, in
the meantime the Sheriff has come to see reason in John's claims about the
alien spaceship and aliens taking over humans, and when he learns the
aliens have abducted Ellen (whom he has always had a soft spot for), he
immediately forms a posse to bring down the aliens for good.
Fortunately though, John can make it to the aliens' hide-out - the
old mine - before the posse can, warn the aliens and persuade them to
release all their human hostages, before he blows up the entrtance to the
mine, making it impossible for the posse to reach the aliens ...
And all of a sudden, everyone sees the alien spaceship take off from
out of a pile of rubble ...
Jack Arnold's first science fiction movie is certainly one of the
better films of 1950's style paranoia cinema, inasmuch as the aliens are
not just a metaphor for communists this time around and the film as a
whole is not so much about alien takeover as it is about paranoia and fear
itself. A script that's more intelligent than the usual 1950's horror fare
and a very smooth and competent direction of course also help in making
this one of the best genre films of its era ... but on the downside, the
film is not nearly as much fun as comparable AIP
drive-in sci-fi flicks from just a few years later.
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