Director: Jack Arnold
Writers: Harry Essex, Ray Bradbury
Stars: Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, Charles Drake
Run Time: 1 Hour, 21 Minutes
Link: https://amzn.to/31igsCY
Synopsis
We begin in Sand Rock, Arizona as dusk falls. John and Barbara are spending a quiet evening at his house. They’re flirting and talking about getting married as he stands outside and looks through his telescope. They’re about to kiss when, suddenly, a giant meteorite flies across the sky and crashes into something else and then hit the ground. They go to investigate.
We zoom in on the meteorite and see that it’s a spaceship. Its door opens and we see various mechanisms working inside. We then see a creature walk out through the door. John arrives by helicopter and goes down into the crater to investigate. John and the alien watch each other. The alien shuts the door to the ship, which causes a landslide that buries The whole ship underground.
Ellen and Pete tell him not to tell anyone that he saw “Martians” down there. He does tell the police, and they don’t believe him. He says, “It Came from Outer Space.” John and Ellen nearly hit the creature on their drive home. We see that it leaves a trail behind it when it walks. The scientists come out the next day, and they all think it was just a meteorite.
The town, and especially Ellen’s father the sheriff, doesn’t understand Putnam, a science-fiction writer who they think is weird. Still, he knows one of the creatures got out of the ship before it was buried.
Frank, the phone lineman, says there’s something weird on the phone lines; a strange sound. He and his assistant George soon run onto the thing on the road, and it does something to them. John and Ellen park behind their truck and they find the thing’s trail. George is alive, but he’s acting strangely, almost possessed. John sees Frank the lineman’s body, but he doesn’t say anything. The alien tells Frank and George that it can change shape to match theirs. John brings the sheriff, but everything is gone when they return.
The alien, in the form of George and Frank, tell John to leave them alone before something terrible happens that John can’t even imagine.
A group of three miners hears strange noises coming from the mine shaft; the mine shaft that goes right below where the meteor hit. The creature gets them as well. Frank and George’s wives go to the sheriff, who might be starting to believe. The sheriff explains that the hardware store had a bunch of electrical equipment go missing.
Ellen runs into Frank in the desert, and he wants a ride to the mine. He possesses her as well. John gets a phone call telling him to go to a particular spot in the desert, and the sheriff tags along. Ellen leads him to the mine. The aliens are repairing their ship, and they need John’s help. They explain that they are not yet ready to meet humanity, but they mean us no harm; they landed here by accident. John finally gets a look at one of them, and it’s a big eye on a blobby body.
The sheriff is concerned. Why do the aliens want so many hostages? Why did they take John’s clothes? Where are all these hostages. He refuses to listen and starts setting up a posse to attack the old mine. The posse shoots at Frank’s truck and it bursts into flames. John heads to the mine and he ends up shooting one of the creatures who falls into a deep pit.
The head alien, who looks like John, explains that they will destroy the Earth rather than be captured by the human mob. John convinces them to let the hostages go, and they do. The aliens resume work on their ship. One of the miners suggests closing the mine with dynamite, and that would keep the posse out. Boom! The posse arrives to a collapsed mine, and the aliens have time to work. Minutes later, the ship launches and leaves.
Commentary
This was, according to Steven Spielberg, one of the big inspirations for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It’s got aliens who really don’t care one way or the other about humanity; they are here for their own reasons. They just want to fix their ship and head back onto their journey.
It was entertaining, although a little slow paced. No one really died except for one of the aliens, and it’s more of a science-fiction mystery than a real horror film.