Invaders from Mars (1953)
Directed by William Cameron Menzies, what drives this story so well is the paranoia and fear of its central character little Jimmy Hunt as David MacLean ,while all the stupid adults go stumbling around the sand dunes getting sucked down and lobotomised. David is the only one smart enough to believe his own eyes and know the truth,while gradually the more important towns folk are being recruited into the Martian army. Its not until some one from the Dept of Health ,Dr. Pat Blake (Helena Carter) starts to believe David that eventually we get some action from the adult populace. Again its David who takes the initiative and tries to contact the police to no avail and the local astronomer Dr. Stuart Kelston (Arthur Franz) . Also when ever David is confronted by some sort of a authority like the prison cell (seemed a bit harsh putting a little boy in the slammer) or the entrance to the police station,Menzies exploits Davids fear by making the sets seem more increasingly larger than reality,just to make the kids journey even more fraught with danger.In fact its quite a relief to the viewer when David is finally believed and then we can get on with killing them darn Martians. Again Menzies makes the Marian's huge hulk like creatures,larger than life and twice as ugly,apart from the lead Martian who is just a head and tentacles in a gold fish bowl. Invaders from Mars gets a little talky in the mid section,especially the British version as the distributor wanted some re-edits and allot more information about the invaders. Invaders is a firm favourite of mine,mixing good old scientific twaddle with a good dose of martian action towards the end. Influence on many films later on ,I especially think Dead And Buried shares similar themes of paranoia and people not being what they appear to be.Highly Recommended.
