''Invisible Invaders'' is a 1959
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
film starring
John Agar,
Jean Byron,
John Carradine and
Philip Tonge.
It was produced by
Robert E. Kent
Robert E. Kent (August 31, 1911 in Canal Zone, Panama – December 11, 1984 in Los Angeles) was an American film writer and film producer.
Career
Kent began as a rapid screenwriter for Sam Katzman at Columbia. For seven years he worked as a ...
, directed by
Edward L. Cahn
Edward L. Cahn (February 12, 1899 – August 25, 1963) was an American film director.
Early life and education
Cahn was born in Brooklyn, New York. He went to work at Universal Pictures in 1917 while still a student at UCLA.
Career
...
and written by Samuel Newman. The monster costume from 1958's ''
It! The Terror from Beyond Space
''It! The Terror from Beyond Space'' is an independently made 1958 American science fiction horror film, produced by Robert Kent, directed by Edward L. Cahn, that stars Marshall Thompson, Shawn Smith (Shirley Patterson), and Kim Spalding. The ...
'' was reused in this film (purposely blurred a bit by the cameraman) to represent the invisible alien who briefly turns visible just at the point of dying.
Plot
Dr. Karol Noymann (Carradine), an atomic scientist, is killed in a laboratory explosion. His colleague, Dr. Adam Penner (Tonge), is disturbed by the accident and resigns his position and calls for changes.
At Dr. Noymann's funeral, an invisible alien takes over Noymann's dead body. The alien, in Noymann's body, visits Dr. Penner and tells him the Earth must surrender or an alien force will invade and take over the Earth by inhabiting the dead and causing chaos. The alien demonstrates to Penner that they are able to make things invisible. Penner tells his daughter Phyllis (Byron) and Dr. John Lamont (
Robert Hutton) about the experience and asks Dr. Lamont to relay the message to the government in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
The government ignores the warning and Dr. Penner is labeled a crank by the media.
Dr. Penner takes his daughter and Dr. Lamont to Dr. Noymann's grave, where they are visited by an invisible alien. Later, at the site of a plane crash, another alien takes over the body of a dead pilot (Don Kennedy), goes to a
hockey game, chokes the announcer, and issues an ultimatum for the Earth to surrender. Another alien takes over a dead body from a car crash and issues the same ultimatum at a different sporting event. The media announce the threat and the governments of the world decide to resist the invasion. Aliens take over more dead bodies and blow up dams, cause fires and destroy buildings, causing chaos worldwide.
Major Bruce Jay (Agar) arrives to take Dr. Penner, Phyllis and Dr. Lamont to a secret bunker. On the way, they are confronted by a scared farmer (Hal Torey) who tries to take their vehicle. The major kills the farmer and the four proceed to the bunker while an alien takes over the dead farmer's body.
At the bunker, they are contacted by the government and tasked with stopping the alien invasion. They determine that the aliens are
radioactive
Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is consid ...
, and decide to capture an alien to conduct tests on. They attempt to spray an alien with
acrylic
Acrylic may refer to:
Chemicals and materials
* Acrylic acid, the simplest acrylic compound
* Acrylate polymer, a group of polymers (plastics) noted for transparency and elasticity
* Acrylic resin, a group of related thermoplastic or thermosett ...
to seal it in plastic, but this fails. They then fill a hole with the acrylic liquid and lure an alien into it. Once captured, the encased alien is taken to the bunker.
Back at the bunker, they confine the alien in a pressure chamber and break the acrylic casing using high air pressure to break the acrylic. The alien offers to spare their lives if they will surrender and set it free; Major Jay refuses. They try several experiments, but nothing affects the alien. Frustrated and hopeless, Dr. Lamont wants to surrender, but Major Jay does not. The two fight and inadvertently damage some electronic equipment, setting off a loud alarm. They notice that the alien reacts violently to the noise.
They build a sound gun and test it on the alien, causing it to become visible and killing it in the process. (As the alien dies, it briefly becomes visible. The producer re-used
Paul Blaisdell's monster suit from the 1958 film ''
It! The Terror from Beyond Space
''It! The Terror from Beyond Space'' is an independently made 1958 American science fiction horror film, produced by Robert Kent, directed by Edward L. Cahn, that stars Marshall Thompson, Shawn Smith (Shirley Patterson), and Kim Spalding. The ...
'' to represent the aliens' appearance at the point of death.) They try to inform the government, but their radio is jammed by the aliens, who are apparently nearby. Using a
radio direction finder
Direction finding (DF), or radio direction finding (RDF), isin accordance with International Telecommunication Union (ITU)defined as radio location that uses the reception of radio waves to determine the direction in which a radio station ...
they follow the jamming signal to the alien ship, killing several aliens along the way.
Jay walks through the woods to get to the ship and is confronted by several aliens. He kills them with the sound gun, but is shot by an alien zombie in the process. Despite being wounded, he finds the alien ship and shoots it with the sound gun, causing it to explode. With the jamming signal silenced, Dr. Penner is then able to contact the government and tell them how to stop the aliens, while Phyllis tends Bruce's wound.
Later, at the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
in New York, Dr. Penner, Dr. Lamont, Phyllis Penner and Major Jay receive thanks for saving the world from the alien invasion. The movie ends with the narrator proudly saying that in the face of a planetary threat, all the people of Earth will unite against a common foe.
Cast
*
John Agar as Major Bruce Jay
*
Jean Byron as Phyllis Penner
*
Philip Tonge as Dr. Adam Penner
*
Robert Hutton as Dr. John Lamont
*
John Carradine as Dr. Karol Noymann
* Hal Torey as The Farmer
*
Paul Langton as General Stone
*
Eden Hartford
Eden Hartford (born Edna Marie Higgins; April 10, 1930 – December 15, 1983) was an American film actress from 1957 to 1962. She is best known as the third wife of comedian Groucho Marx from 1954 until their divorce in 1969.
She was born to ...
as WAAF Secretary
* Don Kennedy as Pilot
* Chuck Niles as Hockey Game Announcer
Production
Production of ''Invisible Invaders'' began in December 1958.
The film was made as part of a package deal with ''
The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake
''The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake'' is a 1959 American black-and-white horror film written by Orville H. Hampton and directed by Edward L. Cahn. It was one of a series of films they made in the late 1950s for producer Robert E. Kent on contract f ...
''. It was the fourth science fiction film made by Premium Pictures.
The shooting schedule and budget are not known. Byron said in an interview that the "picture was filmed rather quickly. I remember the director moving from one set-up to the next very rapidly". Film critic
Bill Warren called it a "cheap little picture", noting that it "couldn't possibly have had a shooting schedule longer than two weeks (probably one week)" and that the movie gives "every evidence of having been made in great haste".
Costs were held down, in part, by re-use of special effects artist
Paul Blaisdell's monster costume from 1958's ''
It! The Terror from Beyond Space
''It! The Terror from Beyond Space'' is an independently made 1958 American science fiction horror film, produced by Robert Kent, directed by Edward L. Cahn, that stars Marshall Thompson, Shawn Smith (Shirley Patterson), and Kim Spalding. The ...
'' (also directed by Cahn) during a sequence in which one of the invaders is encased in plastic so it can be seen. According to author Randy Palmer, "To help camouflage the costume, optical effects were added to lighten the image and give it a distinct blur, so that it's very difficult to tell that the invader's true form matches that of (Blaisdell's) Martian Lizard Man". However, as Warren pointed out, by 1959 "no one cared about SF movies made on this budget level. They were just a product to get on the screen as soon as possible".
Nevertheless, Blaisdell wasn't compensated for the reuse of his prop monster suit.
Warren also commented on the film's extensive use of stock footage. "A great flurry of stock shots" were used "as the invaders smash things all over the world - fires, quakes, buildings collapsing, dams bursting". This is "dispiriting," but "the very cheap and shoddy effects match the overall tone" of the movie. The stock footage includes the fatal car wreck scene from 1958's ''
Thunder Road''.
Footage shot for the film itself was also repeated, with scenes re-used of the invisible alien making parallel grooves in the dirt as it shuffles toward Dr. Noymann's grave and then pushes aside some bushes.
Release
''Invisible Invaders'' was released to US theaters on May 15, 1959.
It was copyrighted on 8 May that year, a week before the film opened. Outside the US, it opened in Finland on August 12, 1960 and in Sweden on September 22, 1960. It was also exhibited in theaters in Brazil, Chile, Spain and the Soviet Union. In the UK, it received an "A" certificate from the
British Board of Film Censors on June 15, 1959, which allowed it to be shown to "children accompanied by anyone over 16".
To drum up domestic interest in the film, ''
Variety'' said in its "Exploitips" listing that "the attention-getting title is the chief selling point - a ballyhoo man dressed in a rented space suit ... will get notice from neighborhood youngsters". Whether this was actually done, or if it convinced children to attend the movie, is unknown.
In a review of the
Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
release of ''Invisible Invaders'', Christopher P. Jacobs noted that in an audio commentary, noted sci-fi author Dr. Robert J. Kiss "gives some interesting data on the film's 1959 release and exhibition history, noting how it was almost always shown as the second of a
double feature
The double feature is a motion picture industry phenomenon in which theatres would exhibit two films for the price of one, supplanting an earlier format in which one feature film and various short subject reels would be shown.
Opera use
Opera ho ...
, quickly shifting from one-week runs to bookings of only a couple of days". However, the movie wasn't always the second feature. According to a contemporary advertisement for the New Plaza Theater in
Odessa, Texas, ''Invisible Invaders'' was the third movie on a triple feature, with ''
Plan 9 from Outer Space
''Plan 9 from Outer Space'' is a 1957 American independent science fiction-horror film produced, written, directed, and edited by Ed Wood. The film was shot in black-and-white in November 1956 and had a theatrical preview screening on March 15 ...
'' as the first movie and ''
The Snorkel'' as the second, showing on September 27 and 28, 1959, just four months after ''Invisible Invaders'' was released.
Reception
The movie had only a short run but became a minor cult film on television. Jacobs says it had "unprecedented success in 1962 prime-time TV showings, after low ratings as a late night movie". For example, ''Invisible Invaders'' was shown on Chicago's
WFLD in 1971 as part of its well-known "Science Fiction Theater" program. TCM ran the film as part of a monster movie marathon on New Year's Day 2007.
Critical response
Film critic
Emanuel Levy
Emanuel Levy is an American film critic and professor who has taught at Columbia University, New School for Social Research, Wellesley College, Arizona State University and UCLA Film School. Levy currently teaches in the department of cinem ...
rated the film 3 out of 5 stars.
Writing in ''The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia'', academic
Peter Dendle said, "Though clearly a product of its own time and a low budget, ''Invisible Invaders'' is engaging and fast-paced, riddled with genuinely inspired twists alongside breathtaking implausibilities".
[
]
Home media
''Invisible Invaders'' was first released to the home video market on VHS videotape in 1996 by MGM/UA Home Video MGM/UA may refer to:
*Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, American film and television production and distribution company
**United Artists
United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital p ...
. The film was released on DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
by MGM Home Entertainment in 2003, packaged with ''Journey to the Seventh Planet
''Journey to the Seventh Planet'' is a 1962 Danish-American science fiction film. It was directed by Sid Pink, written by Pink and Ib Melchior, and shot in Denmark with a budget of only US$75,000.
Uranus, the seventh planet in the solar system, ...
'' as part of their Midnite Movies
''Midnite Movies'' is a line of B movies released first on VHS and later on DVD by MGM Home Entertainment. The line was begun by MGM in March 2001 following its acquisition of Orion Pictures, which bought out Filmways, the owner of American Int ...
series. The Blu-ray edition, released in July 2016 by Kino Lorber
Kino Lorber is an international film distribution company based in New York City. Founded in 1977, it was originally known as Kino International until it was acquired by and merged into Lorber HT Digital in 2009. It specializes in art house films, ...
, featured a full-length audio commentary by film historians Tom Weaver and Dr. Robert J. Kiss.
Soundtrack
Paul Dunlap
Paul Dunlap (July 19, 1919 – March 11, 2010) was an American composer. He wrote music for over 200 films during his 30-year career. He is best known for his work with Western movies.
Early life
William Paul Dunlap was born to William P. a ...
composed the music for ''Invisible Invaders''. Dunlap would later use much of the same music in three other science fiction movies: ''The Angry Red Planet
''The Angry Red Planet'' (also called ''Invasion of Mars'' and ''Journey to Planet Four'') is a 1959 American science fiction film directed by Ib Melchior and starring Gerald Mohr.
Melchior reportedly had an initial production budget of only $2 ...
'' later in 1959, ''The Three Stooges in Orbit
''The Three Stooges In Orbit'' is a 1962 American comedy science fiction film directed by Edward Bernds. It is the fourth feature film to star the Three Stooges after their 1959 resurgence in popularity. By this time, the trio consisted of Moe Ho ...
'' in 1962, and ''Destination Inner Space
''Destination Inner Space'' is a 1966 science fiction film produced by Earl Lyon, directed by Francis D. Lyon, written by Arthur C. Pierce, and stars Scott Brady, Gary Merrill, and Sheree North. The film was released to theaters in the US in M ...
'' in 1966.
References
Bibliography
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External links
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{{Edward L. Cahn
1959 films
1959 horror films
1950s science fiction horror films
American science fiction horror films
1950s English-language films
American black-and-white films
American zombie films
Films directed by Edward L. Cahn
Films scored by Paul Dunlap
1950s American films
Films set in bunkers