IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1 (Universal 3-D)
Sound format: 3-track magnetic stereo
(Sepia)
A small-town astronomer (Richard Carlson) witnesses an alien spacecraft fall to earth in the Mojave desert, but no one believes his claims that alien intruders have stolen the identities of several townsfolk.
Archetypal 1950's sci-fi thriller, rendered all the more luminous in 3-D, which turns the bleak, endless desert into a thing of otherworldly beauty. Carlson is a bland but likable hero (essentially the same character he would play in another 3-D classic, CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON), and the plot is a typical mixture of eerie thrills and paranoid fantasy, with a neat structure and predictable outcome. But it's the imagery which lingers in the mind: The huge spacecraft lodged in the side of a mountain, towering over Carlson just before it's buried beneath an avalanche (watch out for those flying rocks!); the humanoid figure which rises out of the desert gloom to flag down a car driven by heroine Barbara Rush; the telephone wires framed against the sky, transmitting unearthly sounds which betray an alien presence. The aliens themselves may induce giggles in today's audiences (they look like a one-eyed blancmange!), but no one can deny the visual impact of Clifford E. Stine's black and white photography (try to see it on the big screen) and Herman Stein's theremin-charged music score (try to hear it in stereo sound). Directed by Jack Arnold.
NB. Projected at 1.85:1 aspect ratio in some venues, though the movie was clearly photographed with Academy 1.37:1 ratio in mind and screened that way in most theaters.
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1 (Universal 3-D)
Sound format: 3-track magnetic stereo
(Sepia)
A small-town astronomer (Richard Carlson) witnesses an alien spacecraft fall to earth in the Mojave desert, but no one believes his claims that alien intruders have stolen the identities of several townsfolk.
Archetypal 1950's sci-fi thriller, rendered all the more luminous in 3-D, which turns the bleak, endless desert into a thing of otherworldly beauty. Carlson is a bland but likable hero (essentially the same character he would play in another 3-D classic, CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON), and the plot is a typical mixture of eerie thrills and paranoid fantasy, with a neat structure and predictable outcome. But it's the imagery which lingers in the mind: The huge spacecraft lodged in the side of a mountain, towering over Carlson just before it's buried beneath an avalanche (watch out for those flying rocks!); the humanoid figure which rises out of the desert gloom to flag down a car driven by heroine Barbara Rush; the telephone wires framed against the sky, transmitting unearthly sounds which betray an alien presence. The aliens themselves may induce giggles in today's audiences (they look like a one-eyed blancmange!), but no one can deny the visual impact of Clifford E. Stine's black and white photography (try to see it on the big screen) and Herman Stein's theremin-charged music score (try to hear it in stereo sound). Directed by Jack Arnold.
NB. Projected at 1.85:1 aspect ratio in some venues, though the movie was clearly photographed with Academy 1.37:1 ratio in mind and screened that way in most theaters.