What’s the connection between condoms and Martian invaders?
Find out in today’s Trillion $ Movie, Invaders from Mars. The Martians fit the stereotype. Their leader is a little, green man inside a flying saucer who practices mind control on unwary humans by planting an
Republic Pictures’ Invaders from Mars, released in 1953, competed at the box office with It Came from Outer Space, Universal Pictures’ first 3-D movie. Invaders was also originally planned as a 3-D movie, but with a production budget of only $290,000, that option had to be scrapped. Still, it’s fun to count how many scenes have protuberances — like test tubes, telescopes and alien probes — jutting out in the foreground.
The direction is by William Cameron Menzies, better known as a set designer on Gone With the Wind, The Son of the Sheik, The Thief of Bagdad and many other titles. Menzies’ visual flair is much evidence here, as in the scene where David gets hauled into a police station that looks strangely dreamlike and surreal, as if Salvador Dali might have designed it. Enjoy and do return next Friday for another Trillion $ Movie!