Thanks to the need to quickly get out product to audiences rabid for the fantastic, plenty of 1950’s sci-fi and horror movies look as if they were tossed together on a few weekends or less by people more or less making stuff up as they went along. Granted, this led to some true classics of awesomely wretched in-excess (otherwise known as “Z” movie greatness around here), but there were also some surprisingly well-made gems that still pack a punch in terms of story, design and overall impact.

Despite two out of three unconvincing-looking aliens (the third one’s the charm) and a bit too much military stock footage inserted to show loads of troops on the move, Invaders From Mars in squarely in the latter camp thanks to its director and production designer, William Cameron Menzies. The multiple Oscar winner applied his keen eye to the film’s visual style, which presents an alien invasion primarily from the point of view of the young boy who sees a saucer land in the field behind his house. Of course, no one believes him, but as things start to go strange around him, there are a few that finally see the light and fight back against the aliens…

The films succeeds as a solid sci-fi effort as well as cleverly tapping into the whole fear of whatever foreign bogeyman the government claimed was creeping around neighborhoods across the country through the news media. As a few citizens are kidnapped through that alien sand pit out back, 10-year old David MacClean has a hard time convincing his parents that aliens have landed. Of course, it’s hard to be believed when the people you say have vanished turn up in physically fine shape, but with their personalities altered (and a nasty welt on the back of their necks).

David has to deal with one of his parents getting returned as a meaner version easy to strike out when confronted, then the other and later, some in authority as well when he’s retrieved at the police station after causing some trouble by raising the alarm further. Menzies’ designs for these and other striking sets, his use of color and composition and a fantastic score by  Raoul Kraushaar makes the film a pleasure to watch. Seen from a child’s point of view or at times, representing how David must imagine things (perhaps those tall bubble-eyed aliens look different to adults than how he recalls them?), there’s both a child-like and unsettling vibe running throughout the movie that fits perfectly.

While the low budget effects are pretty simple, a few stand out such as the “melting” walls in a few sequences and that eerie (and still convincing) Martian leader, one of those creature designs that freaked me out as a kid and even into my early teens, as I never bothered to look up how Menzies and whomever did the effects pulled that off. Unlike today’s films where you find out all about every single second of how a scene was constructed, IFM makes the case for not knowing a damn thing making for a more effective movie.

Of course, try pushing THAT agenda now in this “gotta know it all but know nothing” era we’re in. Yeah, yeah – “Knowing is half the battle” and all that, but sometimes, the less you know, the better a surprise works, I say. Anyway, his one’s out of print on DVD I hear, but try and track it down if you can, as some copies have the British version that butchered Menzies’ work with added sequences to downplay the original twist ending and more or less tame up the darker moments. See this as it’s meant to be seen, check out the re-cut version (which is longer, but needlessly so) and if you like, add Tobe Hooper’s 1986 remake to this as a double feature. It’s nowhere as good, but has its moments of “OK-ness” and some fun casting choices.