It Came From Outer Space (1953, Jack Arnold) (v)

And this is how the message ran: Humans will try to destroy what they fear. Not the most original idea, but certainly interesting, perhaps even brave for a 50s SF flick. (Although, for my money, I'll take the same idea, expressed in two seconds, in Plan 9 From Outer Space: "You humans are stupid! Stupid!" says the alien leader, and is immediately decked by the lunkhead hero.) Too bad that, as a story, it's a bit blah; there's no character development, just the usual types (disbelieved scientist hero, disbelieving sheriff, faithful girlfriend) that probably seemed like clichés even then. This coupled, with the non-hostile aliens (the movie plays like a benign version of Invaders From Mars) creates a narrative that's all movement and nothing emotionally involving. But damn, what movement. Although it can't compare to Arnold's masterpiece, The Incredible Shrinking Man, nearly every shot is fantastic -- he and cinematographer Clifford Stine seem incapable of a bad composition. Using both real locations and sets, they manage to create the desert that exists mostly in the imagination, a landscape that is both Romanticized and alien, moon-like, not unlike what Ang Lee would later do in Hulk. A couple sequences, virtually wordless, turn his usual strong and pulpy style into poetry: the initial investigation of the meteor crash, revealing the spaceship, and the hero chasing after his girlfriend, who unbeknownst to him (but clear to us) has been replaced by an alien, as she attempts to lead him, siren-like, to his death. Arnold apparently made a few Westerns in his career, a genre that rewards those who find beauty in the rocks and cacti of the Southwest; I'm curious to discover if he was able to bridge the gap.