It Conquered the World (1956) on Netflix
Approved19561h 11mHorrorSci-Fi
Dr. Tom Anderson contacts a Venusian creature that promises to rid humanity of emotion, and agrees to help it. His wife Claire and friend Paul Nelson doubt him.
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- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb5.0/103,013 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes80%
Trailer
Plot summary
Dr. Tom Anderson, who has contacted a creature from Venus by radio, warns officials in Washington that alien intelligence is watching Earth and begs them to call off the satellite project, only to learn it has already launched. The creature claims it wants to bring peace by eliminating all emotion, and Anderson agrees to help it, though his wife Claire is convinced he is deluded. Dr. Paul Nelson runs the project; the satellite leaves its orbit, and when the team brings it back it crash-lands near a cave and hot springs. The Venusian emerges, and electric power fails around the world, stopping cars and telephones. Anderson reads out a list of eight people marked for mind control devices.
Cast
- Paul Harboras Floyd Mason
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about It Conquered the World (1956)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- While filming the bayoneting of the creature, one of the soldiers stuck his bayonet in the wrong spot and nearly skewered Paul Blaisdell's skull as Blaisdell worked the costume from inside; his wife had persuaded him to wear a helmet, which deflected the blade.
- The creature's melting eye socket was created with chocolate syrup. Paul Blaisdell's wife was inside the suit, working the chocolate-squirting device by hand, which backed up and squirted all over her.
SPOILER
Britain's film board gave the film an X certificate, adults only, because the scene of the creature being destroyed by a blowtorch was seen as animal cruelty. Producer Samuel Z. Arkoff convinced the board the violence was against an otherworldly person, not an animal, and the film earned its passing certificate.- Lou Rusoff wrote the screenplay but had to leave for Canada when his brother died before it was finished, so Roger Corman called in Charles Griffith for a final rewrite two days before filming began.
- Paul Blaisdell designed the creature low to the ground, reasoning that life on a big planet like Venus would evolve to cope with heavy gravity. Roger Corman later admitted it was a mistake and said a larger or taller creature would have been more frightening.
- Paul Blaisdell called the creature prop "Beulah" during production. Much of it disintegrated because it was stored badly, and whatever was left was destroyed in the fire-scene finale of AIP's 1958 film How to Make a Monster.
- The closing monologue of It Conquered the World inspired the similar ending of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
