Invaders from Mars (1953) on Netflix
A flying saucer lands in the sandpit behind David MacLean's home. His scientist father goes to investigate and comes back cold and hostile, and others around town change the same way.
- Netflix2.6/5
- IMDb6.3/1010,487 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
Trailer
Plot summary
David MacLean, a boy woken by a thunderstorm, watches a flying saucer sink into the sandpit behind his home. His father George, a scientist, goes out to look and returns in the morning with a puncture on his neck, cold and hostile, ordering David to say nothing about what he saw. Neighbors and the police behave the same way. Through his telescope David sees a neighboring child, Kathy Wilson, disappear underground in the sandpit. He runs to the police station, where the chief locks him in a cell. A physician, Dr. Pat Blake, is summoned to calm him; she checks his details and comes to believe him. She takes him to astronomer Dr. Stuart Kelston, who thinks the saucer may be the vanguard of an invasion from Mars.
Cast
- Charles Gibbas Lt. Blair
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Invaders from Mars (1953)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- For the bubbled-up look of the blasted tunnel walls, the effects crew replaced balloons with inflated latex condoms after tests showed they looked more convincing, then inflated more than 3,000 and stuck them to the set; in some shots the condoms move as the Martian mutants rush past the tunnels.
- Invaders from Mars was rushed into production to come out before George Pal's War of the Worlds, also released in 1953, making it the first feature film to show aliens and their spacecraft in color.
- The Martian heat-ray effect, which showed the bubbling, melting walls of the tunnels, was created by shooting a large tub of boiling oatmeal from above, colored red with food coloring and lit with red lights.
SPOILER
The British distributor complained the film was not long enough and the dream narrative not satisfactory, so the producer shot additional footage to lengthen the observatory sequence and changed the dream narrative.- The film's Martian music, an ethereal, rhythmically wavering composition sung in unison by a choir, is credited to Raoul Kraushaar, but Thomas Hischak's Encyclopedia of Film Composers notes most of the score is now believed to be the work of Republic composer Mort Glickman.
- Invaders from Mars developed a cult following after its initial release and was championed as a childhood favorite by directors Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Joe Dante.
- Dr. Pat Blake was the first and only character Helena Carter played that was not a male lead's love interest, and she retired from acting after the film was completed.
