WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: It Conquered the World 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:07.320 Hey, Welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:09.360 Lamb and Hey, today we're going to be looking back 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:12.520 in an episode that originally published nine, twenty twenty four. 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:15.600 It is going to be Roger Corman's nineteen fifty six 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:20.040 sci fi horror thriller It Conquered the World, starring Peter Graves, 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:23.800 Beverly Garland, and Lee Van Cleif. This one's a lot 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:29.200 of fun, some cool ideas in here, and an infamously 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.800 funny looking monster, so let's check it out. 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:41.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:49.400 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb. 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:52.600 And this is Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema, 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:55.720 we are finally going to be devoting a full episode 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:58.560 to a movie that we have referenced in passing quite 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:00.200 a bit over the years. I don't know if it's 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:03.279 come up as often as Highlander two, but it's got 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:07.039 to be close. This is the subject of a fan 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:10.720 favorite episode of Mystery Science Theater three thousand from season 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:14.119 three with Joel and Another example of one of our 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:18.920 favorite niche subgenres, low budget atomic age sci fi horror 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:22.480 thrillers directed by Roger Corman, which played as part of 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:25.399 a double bill at your local drive in in the fifties. 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:29.040 This one. Most of these movies are great because they're 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:32.520 usually less than seventy minutes long. This one's at the 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:37.080 longer end of that scale. It's like sixty nine seventy minutes, 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:39.960 you know. They get even shorter. Attack of the Crab 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:43.600 Monsters is like, what, sixty two minutes or something, But 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:46.959 it's still right in the zone. And as I've said before, 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:50.000 I want to be on record that I think it's 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:53.200 okay for feature films to be that short. You don't 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:56.040 need to try to stretch it out, as even this 0:01:56.160 --> 0:02:00.160 short movie does with all these scenes of driving and parking. 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.480 Yes, indeed, modern filmmakers, you can make them this short. 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.160 We approve. Oh wait, but I didn't say the name yet. Sorry, 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:09.720 Today we're talking about it Conquered the World from nineteen 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:14.440 fifty six, starring Peter Graves, Beverly Garland, and a devious 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:18.079 Earth betraying Lee van Cleef, who is redeemed in the end. 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:23.600 You know. So this is a movie I've seen primarily 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:29.280 in the Mystery Science Theater episode, and I guess because 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:33.000 of the MST framing, I'd never really given it a 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:37.000 serious chance on its own terms. I actually had seen 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:39.760 it on its own before, but still just kind of 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:42.280 with the mind of looking for the cheesy bits, and 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:44.240 there are plenty of those, we can talk about them. 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:49.359 But this movie is not bad. This is a pretty solid, 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:51.200 scrappy drive in film. 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:54.640 Absolutely. Yeah. This is a film I too had seen 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:58.360 numerous times in its MST three K format over the decades, 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:00.880 but this was actually not my first time watching it 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:04.680 straight up. So yeah, I feel like, as is often 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:07.320 the case with the best MST three K episodes, the 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:11.080 underlying movie is very watchable on its own. You know, 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:16.799 it has some wonky pacing at times, nothing really zings visually, 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.920 at least as it's intended to zing. 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:22.840 I mean, I would say the monster zing's but mostly 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:24.240 because of how funny it looks. 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.720 Yes, yeah, yeah, it does not inspire terror, but it 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:31.280 is amazing and it's in a different way. Yeah. It 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:34.360 has a couple of spirited performances that we'll discuss, and 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:37.840 it at least bats around some deeper sci fi concepts 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:43.920 as well as some rather obvious anxieties about communist brainwashing. Now, 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:46.920 this is not a film about communists, but as is 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:49.400 often the case with some of these sci fi films 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:52.920 about alien minutes from this time period, you know, it's 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:55.640 very clear that they're getting into some of the popular 0:03:55.680 --> 0:04:00.320 anxieties about communism in the way that they're described being 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:03.440 and dealing with this extraterrestrial. 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:06.480 Threat in most of these movies with alien brainwashing, and 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:09.840 it's the same case in this one. The alien ideology 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:14.240 is less controversial and specific, and this one it's about 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:19.520 ridding human beings of emotion, which at first that sounds 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:22.080 like kind of a placeholder themes, like oh yeah, okay, 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:26.360 but it actually leads to a couple of interesting dialogue scenes, 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:29.000 Like they go deeper with that theme than you would 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:30.719 expect for a movie of this sort. 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:34.560 Yeah yeah, And I feel like I've always enjoyed those scenes, 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:36.599 Like this is a film that is sixty percent living 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:41.240 room dialogue scenes in which luckily they do get into 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:43.920 some of these topics. It's like thirty five percent driveways 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:47.480 and then some lab scenes and caves scene sprinkled to 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:49.920 fill out the rest of it. But it moves right along. 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:52.240 I feel like I always end up loving it when 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.440 I watch it. Yeah, and it at least bats around 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:59.640 some deeper concepts, even even if the same. At the 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.320 same time, you have to acknowledge that this is a 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:04.640 fast film. This is a cheap film. I think they 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:08.440 filmed it in five days. Like all of that taken 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:10.920 into account, it holds up really well. 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:13.760 I agree, and I think the movie literally I think 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:17.599 actually the weakest element of it is the padding. I 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:20.240 think if you were to edit out about ten to 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:23.120 fifteen minutes of this movie, cut it down to like 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:26.440 a fifty to fifty five minute film, it would be 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:29.159 really solid. Like you just cut out a lot of 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:32.080 the driving and the three point turns, the dramatic three 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:35.880 point turns. I'm sorry, Roger, They're I'm not buying it. 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:38.000 That's not as great as you think it is. 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:43.600 Yeah, yeah, yeah, A lots of parking scenes and then 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:46.520 you know, anytime we're outdoors, I feel like it feels 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:50.120 like it's a thousand degrees like direct sunlight high noon. 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:53.040 It is not a technical masterpiece. 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:55.680 Another one of the weak points. I would say, no 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:58.680 offense to him personally, nothing against Peter Graves, but Peter 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:02.200 graves performance in this movie I think is quite wooden. 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:06.359 He's like pressure treated pine in this But it's funny 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.120 because they put him opposite actors who I think for 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:11.680 a movie like this, are doing a fantastic job. We've 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:14.359 got Beverly Garland and Lea Van Cleef and they are 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:15.719 wonderful in this movie. 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:21.080 Yeah, with Peter Graves, it's interesting because Peter Graves certainly 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:24.920 has a style, you know, and this is very much 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:30.400 a sort of teeth gritted square kind of performance. You know. 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:32.760 This is Peter Graves and he's here to play it 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:35.720 by the books. But at the same time, there I 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:40.040 think there are some very weird choices in his character 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:42.760 that I mean, I don't know what you would ask 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:45.279 God him to do, you know. So we'll get into 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:46.840 that when we get into the plot a bit more. 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:51.360 Because he ultimately his character is ultimately like the champion 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:55.400 of human emotion, and yet his character seems to have 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:59.480 only like maybe two emotions and makes some and engages 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:03.800 in some very cold blooded murder as the plot progresses. 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:07.400 Yeah, he is the advocate for the benefits of emotion 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:10.640 as a motivating force for humans, and yet he doesn't 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:14.720 really display any. Levan Kleef is arguing against us having 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:17.640 emotions and is giving a quite passionate performance. 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:19.840 Yeah, and is often in the throes of emotion, and 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:22.679 I guess it kind of works that regard like he 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:26.960 he understands the throes of emotion and sees how this 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:30.680 affects other people and has glimpse a path out of 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:35.280 that trap, where Peter Greve's character is more like emotion's 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:37.520 good must We've got to keep them. That's what makes 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:38.000 it special. 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:41.160 Now I want to talk briefly about this movie's meta, 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:46.200 because there's an interesting contradiction here. I think, despite the 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:49.560 fact that this movie has a famously goofy looking monster, 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:51.800 when you actually get to it in the film, it 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:55.840 mostly shows up in the last three minutes or so, well, no, 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:57.840 a little bit before that, mostly in the last ten 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:01.000 minutes or so. When you see the monster, it is 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:04.120 not very convincing. It is not very scary, and in 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:08.600 fact is quite hilarious. But the exact same monster design 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:13.840 when rendered as an illustration gazing into your soul from 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:18.600 the movie poster rendering is awesome. I think that this 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:21.760 monster looks great on every poster I've seen for It 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:24.360 Conquered the World. In fact, I've got a poster for 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:26.560 this movie framed in my office because it's one of 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:28.480 my favorite fifties movie posters. 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:32.280 It is indeed a terrific poster, and it's just a 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:34.400 testament to the craft that they can make it look 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:37.160 this good when nothing else in the movie really looks 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:37.560 this gay. 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:40.880 But further regarding the meta, oh man, this has some 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:44.240 great taglines. So one of the posters, of course, it 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:47.720 has the title. It's got a screaming Beverly Garland. It's 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:50.600 got people being attacked by these sort of you know, 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:55.679 mind control bats. It's got the creature from Venus staring 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:58.520 into our souls with red eyes. But then it's got 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:01.480 some text on it. It says it conquered the world. 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:06.760 Every man, it's prisoner, every woman, its slave. See world 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:10.720 conquered by the horrible beast from beyond the stars. See 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:15.240 the hideous flying fingers of the monster. And then below that, 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:18.480 I think we see leaving Cleef with like his little 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:21.920 blow torch kind of oh monster, like it's looking in 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:24.280 the window of a house. But that doesn't ever happen 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:24.800 in the movie. 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:28.320 Yeah, but certainly the monster the benefactor looks amazing here. 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:32.960 And yeah, I mean, I guess they couldn't really even 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.520 attempt to depict the monster carrying a woman though, because it, 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:39.080 as we see, it's so low to the ground. Yes, 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:40.480 how would that even work. 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:44.520 Its arms are not long enough to carry a human body. Yeah, 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:50.400 well t rex arms, but they're mounted on the sides. Yes. No, wait, 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:52.400 hold on, I said that, but I take it back 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:55.440 because actually the weight it's drawn in the poster here, 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:57.760 it has short little arms, but in the movie it 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:00.000 does sort of reach out with its arms and really 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:02.840 grab around people. That's how Lee van Cleef bites it. 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:05.320 In the end. The monster just reaches up and grabs 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:06.480 him with the claw. 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:10.040 Yeah, they kind of reach up, but not so much out. 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:13.880 It would still be hard to imagine this creature carrying 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:16.960 a woman. All right, we're not going to feature trailer 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:20.120 audio in this one, but instead, Joe, why don't you 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:22.480 just go ahead and recite the film's most famous monologue 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:23.000 for us here. 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:25.079 Oh, you're putting me on the spot, but I guess 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:27.680 we should. We should do that near the beginning, because 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:29.640 this is another one of the most famous things about 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:33.440 the movie. I've already praised the script, so put that aside. 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:36.160 It is I think a pretty tight, kind of scrappy script, 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:40.400 it's got some interesting ideas. This ending monologue is atrocious. 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:44.320 Here's how it goes. He learned almost too late that 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.560 man is a feeling creature and because of it, the 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:51.000 greatest in the universe. He learned too late for himself 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:53.439 that men have to find their own way, to make 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:56.720 their own mistakes. There can't be any gift of perfection 0:10:56.880 --> 0:11:01.520 from outside ourselves. And when men seeks perfection they find 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:07.640 only death, fire, loss, disillusionment, the end of everything that's 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:10.920 gone forward. Men have always sought an end to the 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:13.920 toil and misery, but it can't be given. It has 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:17.000 to be achieved. There is hope, but it has to 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:22.600 come from inside, from men himself. And I like to sometimes, 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:25.000 of course, it is Peter Graves who says this at 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:27.920 the end of the movie, and it's also a very bloated, 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:31.160 wooden kind of delivery. But I like to imagine this 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:34.840 monologue being given by David Huddleston as the Big Lebowski 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:37.520 and the Big Lebowski and it has to be achieved. 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.280 Yeah, yeah, it would have taken. It would have had 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:46.720 a different energy certainly, But yeah, this is the ending monologue. 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:51.480 This is ultimately like the the thesis statement for the picture, 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:52.560 I guess, I. 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:55.760 Guess so to defend what comes before this monologue, I 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:59.240 think the film makes these points without this hilarious speech 0:11:59.280 --> 0:11:59.800 at the end. 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:03.280 Yeah, just sort of like patting it out a little bit, maybe, yeah, 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:04.920 and trying to punctuate it. 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:07.760 It's the verbal equivalent of another parking scene. 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:12.360 All right. Well, if you want to watch it conquered 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:14.480 the World, you can certainly go out and do so. 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:18.000 As of this recording, this one isn't available as a 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:20.840 legit stream anywhere. You can find it if you look around, 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:24.480 but couldn't find it on any of the legit streaming platforms. 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:27.360 You're also hard pressed to get a DVD of it, 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:30.640 though there are some for sale and at reasonable prices 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:33.480 in some of the familiar websites, but I don't know 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.680 who is putting them out, so I don't know what 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:38.840 kind of releases these are. But there is not a 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:42.880 Blu ray release, And while famously featured in that nineteen 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:45.600 ninety one episode of MST three K, I don't think 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:49.320 this episode has ever been made available on disc. So 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.600 the rights for this film and a handful of other 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:55.679 AIP films, including the amazing Colossal Man, and I was 0:12:55.720 --> 0:13:00.240 a teenage werewolf sadly seemed to be held up. It's 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:03.560 a shame, because it Conquered the World certainly deserves placement 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:07.000 in a proper physical release of Roger Corman's films. 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:10.079 Yeah, I got confused because I have a couple of 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:13.320 different Corman box sets and this wasn't in either of them, 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:17.080 so I had to go elsewhere. But yeah, so this 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:19.400 has come up on the show before this. There's a 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:21.440 number of films on this list that are apparently being 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:25.160 held up by the same rights holder, And this came 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:28.240 up because we were wondering, why isn't the amazing Colossal 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:30.560 Man viewable at all? Really? 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:33.560 Yeah, yeah, and this would seem to be the answer. So, 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:36.480 you know, these things tend not to last forever, so 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:39.440 you know, at some point in the future these films 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:43.480 will be released, they'll get some nice physical additions and 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:47.680 become available on streaming. But until that time, we're left 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:48.559 with what we can get. 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:50.800 But I agree with your statement that It Conquered the 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:55.320 World belongs in any proper, you know, fifties Corman box set. 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:58.480 It's I would say it is up there with movies 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:01.320 like Not of This Earth, except a little bit flabbier. 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:03.920 There's a little more, you know, there's a little more 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:06.559 stuff you could cut out. Not if this Earth has 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:09.280 similar strengths, but I think is a little tighter. 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:20.160 Yeah, all right, Let's talk about the folks involved in 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:22.800 this production, starting at the top with someone we've talked 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:24.720 about in the show before, and that's Roger Corman, the 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.880 director and producer here who lived nineteen twenty six through 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:31.640 twenty twenty four. Corman was, of course, the Wizard of 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:35.520 B movies and a prolific creator of late fifties drive 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:39.480 in flicks. We've covered numerous Corman produced and or Corman 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:43.000 directed films on Weird House Cinema already, including sixty four's 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:46.200 Mask of the Red Death, which is probably among his 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:49.960 best work, as well as some of his many entertaining 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:53.160 low budget films like nineteen fifty seven's Not of This Earth. 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:56.320 Seth joined me on Weird House for an episode on 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:59.160 the nineteen fifty nine beat Nick horror comedy A Bucket 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:02.640 of Blood, and this is our first episode about a 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:06.520 Corman directed film since his death earlier this year at 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:07.680 the age of ninety eight. 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:10.760 Though we may come back to Corman's Vincent Price Poe 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:12.040 Movies this October. 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:17.120 Yes, so this was one of four Corman directed films 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:20.360 released in fifty six, but the only sci fi or 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:25.320 horror title. Swamp Woman, which also had Beverly Garland, was 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:29.000 a crime picture, and both Gunslinger with Beverly Garland and 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:33.160 The Oklahoma Woman with Peggy Castle were westerns. This was 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.960 the year before Attack of the Crab Monsters, and as 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:39.600 Michael Weldon points out in the Psychotronic Film Guide, this 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:43.160 was only Corman's second sci fi film, which is it's 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.240 always interesting to realize this sort of thing when we 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:49.200 think about Roger Corman, who's best remembered for so many 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:52.880 of these sci fi and or horror pictures, but he 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:55.240 also did a lot of westerns and other sorts of 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:56.040 flicks as well. 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:58.480 It's hard to believe he only did four movies in 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:01.440 this year though, I mean, yeah, up the pace, Roger, Well. 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:05.280 Those are just the director's credits. I didn't check production, 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:07.680 but yeah, he was ratchet it up. I think the 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:12.040 late fifties were really his key years of output. Yeah. 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:14.840 Was it fifty seven that he I want to say, 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:18.320 made either eight or eleven movies that year? Yeah? 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:21.000 Yeah, I mean he would pump them out. I mean 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:24.840 even this film again shot in apparently five days, shot 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:28.120 in California, with key scenes taking place at Bronson Cave 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:30.040 in Griffith Park, which has come up time and time 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:34.000 again on the show a popular place in California to 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:38.000 shoot your otherworldly or just desolate scenes. 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:41.920 In this movie, they say that the creature from Venus 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:46.200 is living there because the conditions inside mimic those on Venus. 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:49.160 I don't know about that. 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:52.760 All right, Let's get into the writing here. Lou Roussoff 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:55.760 is credited with the screenplay He Lived nineteen eleven through 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:59.440 nineteen sixty three, screenwriter and producer, whose other credits include 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:02.000 fifty five Today The World Ended, fifty six is the 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:05.400 She Creature, sixty threes Beach Party, and sixty seven zon 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:08.399 Tar The Thing from Venus. I think that's kind of 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:10.840 a reworking of some of the same ideas here, and 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:14.440 his production credits include the US version and or US 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:16.840 release of nineteen sixties Black Sunday. 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:20.320 You know, I was surprised when watching the credits this time, 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:23.280 and I noticed that the screenplay credit went to Rusoff 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:26.800 and not to who I assumed was the writer of 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:29.119 this movie, which is Charles B. Griffith. Charles B. Griffith 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.639 wrote Not of This Earth, wrote Attack of the Crab Monsters. 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:36.240 Was a common writer in the Corman scene of this time, 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:39.719 and was famous for being able to crank out a 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:44.800 script that was pretty witty and tight and quickly made. 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:47.439 He could make he could write him fast. 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:50.560 Well, you know, he apparently did some work on the 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:52.959 script anyway. I see he's listed on IMDb as an 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:58.000 uncredited screenwriterskil so you know he got in there and 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:00.520 worked on it to some degree anyway. But indeed, you 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:02.359 think of Corman pictures from this area, you think of 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.159 Charles B. Griffith, who lived nineteen thirty through two thousand 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:07.920 and seven, you know, films like Not of This Earth, 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:10.000 Attack of the Crab Monsters, a Little Shop of hors 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:12.959 and Bucket of Blood. All right, let's get into the 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:17.160 cast here, and I'm gonna not go in billing order. 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:20.240 We'll reference the billing order, but we're gonna take it 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:25.120 by couple, because this film centers mostly around two married couples, 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:27.920 the Nelsons and the Andersons. Though I'd argue that it's 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:29.639 chiefly the story of the Andersons. 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:32.760 That's where the real emotional meat is yes. 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:36.320 All right, So let's start with the Nelsons here, starting 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:40.560 with doctor Paul Nelson, played by the top Build Peter Graves. 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:44.560 Graves Live nineteen twenty six through twenty ten, best known 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:46.800 to many for his long running hosting gig on A 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.000 and E's Biography, or at least for some of us. 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:53.760 I don't know if they're still rerunning episodes that Graves hosted, 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:56.560 but he was a longtime host on Biography, and of 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:59.240 course he had a long run on the original TV 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:03.800 series Mission Possible from sixty seven through seventy three. I 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:05.320 don't think I ever watched any of that, but I 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:08.520 do remember watching some of the late nineteen eighties reboot, 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:12.240 a reboot that I only recently learned resulted from a 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:15.399 Hollywood writers strike. The studio was like, well, we got 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:19.280 to make episodes of something, but we can't use writers. 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:21.680 And they realized, well, let's just go back and get 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:26.080 old Mission Impossible scripts that weren't filmed and just film 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:29.480 them in Australia, and that's what they did. That's where 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:31.639 this show came from. But I remember watching it and 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:36.439 digging it and getting very excited about a Nintendo game 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:39.080 titled Mission Impossible. That was some sort of tie in. 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:41.720 I think it was an official tie in, but also 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:47.600 just a legendarily difficult game. It's one of those Nintendo 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:49.720 games that I don't know if anyone ever beat this thing. 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:53.119 It was just so difficult, but also had some interesting 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:55.320 like stealth mechanics that seemed ahead of their time. 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:58.160 I'm looking it up now. I never played this one. 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:01.399 Yeah, and nothing in the game really matches up with 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:04.480 what you see in a Mission Impossible TV show, But 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:07.280 I don't know. I was excited for it at the time. 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.439 That was common for video game tie ins to movies 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:13.480 and TV shows at the time. There's almost no resemblance 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:15.640 to the plot of the original thing. 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:19.200 Yeah. So Graves was a US Air Force vet. He 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:22.400 was also, of course, the brother of James Arness Graves, 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.000 his stage name Arness we talked about in the past 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:30.640 because he was the Thing from Another World and graves 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:33.720 acting credits go back to the early fifties, including an 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:37.199 early starring sci fi role in fifty two's Red Planet Mars, 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:41.080 but he scored much more success when he appeared in 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:44.680 a supporting role in Billy Wilder Stalog seventeen in nineteen 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:49.719 fifty three. He was not nominated, but the film earned 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:53.160 AUSTAR nominations for two of its stars and its director. 0:20:54.520 --> 0:20:56.520 Graves went on from here to have a long career 0:20:56.560 --> 0:20:59.080 on TV and screen, appearing in the likes of fifty 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:02.680 four's Killers from Space, fifty five's The Night of the Hunter, 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:07.119 seventy nine. Yeah, yeah, The Night of the Hunter. Not 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:09.920 I think there was later a TV version that's different, 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:13.520 but yeah, he was in the picture. He was in 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:16.159 nineteen seventy nine. Is the Clonis Horror? Another MS two 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:17.960 three K favorite of many. 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:20.560 Oh, is that the one about going to America? 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:24.680 Yes, yeah, it's a you know, it's a dull person 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:28.200 movie about clones, but it's one that is I think, 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:31.480 kind of stupid, but also kind of great and has 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:35.960 been sort of re explored, we should say, I guess 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:39.600 with subsequent clone movies. Yes, he was, of course in 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:43.119 nineteen eighties Airplane. He was in ninety three's Adams Family 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:46.399 Values and nineteen ninety nine's House on Haunted Hill. I 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:48.240 think he kind of played himself in both of those, 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:51.080 like a TV presenter role. And he also pops up 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:53.600 in two thousand and two's Men in Black two. 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:55.920 Now we've already talked a bit about the irony of 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:58.520 the casting here, where they have Peter Graves playing the 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:01.720 sort of the Earthling hero who stands up for human 0:22:01.760 --> 0:22:08.280 emotions and yet is quite stiff and clenched in his performance. 0:22:08.640 --> 0:22:11.800 But so he is, in a I think traditional interpretation, 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:13.200 the hero of the movie. 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:17.040 Yes, yeah, yeah, he is, you know, and I guess 0:22:17.040 --> 0:22:20.119 he has the look for it, right he plays. But 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:23.520 he's a space flight scientist. He runs the satellite command 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:26.320 center that I think is a government operation, or at 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:29.680 least it's protected by government forces. 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:33.199 Yeah. So, I mean this is from the fifties, which remember, 0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:36.040 like you know, we didn't really have our full space 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:38.879 program yet at the time, you know, the Apollo program 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:44.399 would until like nineteen sixty one. So they're imagining a 0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:49.320 space program that is being run by the military. And so, yes, 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:53.000 Paul Nelson is. He's I think the creator of a 0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:56.680 satellite that is sort of a first satellite in orbit 0:22:56.760 --> 0:23:00.840 sort of thing. And he is also depicted as great 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:03.480 friends with Lee Van Cleeve's character, who will get to 0:23:03.520 --> 0:23:04.160 in a minute. 0:23:04.440 --> 0:23:07.200 All right, So that's doctor Paul Nelson and doctor Paul 0:23:07.240 --> 0:23:10.520 Nelson's wife is Joan Nelson, played by Sally Fraser, who 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:14.520 lived nineteen thirty two through twenty nineteen. I mean glamorous 0:23:14.560 --> 0:23:17.760 b movie star of the nineteen fifties, whose credits include 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:21.080 another couple of notable genre pictures in the late fifties, 0:23:21.160 --> 0:23:24.439 nineteen fifty eight's War of the Colossal Beast. Oh, actually 0:23:24.520 --> 0:23:27.960 two more, Giant from the Unknown and The Spider. 0:23:28.359 --> 0:23:30.840 Hmmm, trying to think if I've seen any of those. 0:23:30.920 --> 0:23:31.920 I'm not sure. 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:33.439 I've seen War of the I think I've seen War 0:23:33.480 --> 0:23:35.639 of Colossal Beasts, but I can never remember if that 0:23:35.760 --> 0:23:38.760 is the film that comes before The Amazing Colossal Man 0:23:38.880 --> 0:23:42.480 or after, because the films before and after The Amazing 0:23:42.520 --> 0:23:45.119 Colossal Man featured the same makeup, this kind of like 0:23:45.480 --> 0:23:49.720 scarred faced cyclops makeup, So I don't remember off the 0:23:49.720 --> 0:23:50.480 top of my head. 0:23:50.520 --> 0:23:53.960 Here, I think The Amazing Colossal Man is the first one, 0:23:54.040 --> 0:23:55.840 so War of the Colossal Beast has got to be 0:23:55.880 --> 0:23:58.399 a sequel or a subsequent film. 0:23:58.720 --> 0:24:01.240 Yeah, but there is. I think there is another Giant 0:24:01.280 --> 0:24:04.960 Man picture in the in the mix there, just. 0:24:04.920 --> 0:24:07.440 Looks it up. Yeah, Colossal Man is fifty seven, War 0:24:07.480 --> 0:24:09.360 of the Colossal Beast is fifty eight. 0:24:09.560 --> 0:24:11.000 And then what year is the Cyclops. 0:24:11.560 --> 0:24:14.600 Oh with Lon Cheney Junior. I think that that's fifty seven. 0:24:14.760 --> 0:24:17.639 Okay, yeah, that is the same makeup as War of 0:24:17.640 --> 0:24:18.600 the Colossal. 0:24:18.200 --> 0:24:20.560 Beast I see. Okay, So Joan. 0:24:20.440 --> 0:24:23.400 Is Paul's loving wife. This is a very much supporting role, 0:24:23.920 --> 0:24:25.960 but she gets to have some fun moments late in 0:24:25.960 --> 0:24:26.399 the picture. 0:24:26.680 --> 0:24:29.440 Yeah, she has a wonderful Paul. I have a present 0:24:29.480 --> 0:24:32.240 for you've seen yes, yeah, so arns out it's an 0:24:32.280 --> 0:24:33.680 alien mind control device. 0:24:35.880 --> 0:24:38.480 All right, Let's move on to the Andersons here, starting 0:24:38.480 --> 0:24:43.240 with doctor Tom Anderson, played by the legendary Lee van Kleef, 0:24:43.280 --> 0:24:46.120 who lived nineteen twenty five through nineteen eighty nine. It's 0:24:46.160 --> 0:24:51.080 old angelized himself. Now, Van Cleef's career would ultimately really 0:24:51.119 --> 0:24:54.600 take off in the mid nineteen sixties. That's when Sergio 0:24:54.680 --> 0:24:57.359 Leoni casts him in the Clint Eastwood Western for a 0:24:57.400 --> 0:25:00.600 few dollars more, followed by a role as the villain 0:25:00.720 --> 0:25:03.679 Angelies and sixty six is The Good, the Bad, and 0:25:03.720 --> 0:25:07.000 the Ugly. And this just cemented him as a spaghetti 0:25:07.040 --> 0:25:10.480 western superstar. And you know, before and after that too, 0:25:10.520 --> 0:25:13.120 he appeared in tons of westerns. Like you look at 0:25:13.119 --> 0:25:17.600 his filmography, it's really like mostly Westerns and some crime 0:25:17.640 --> 0:25:22.640 pictures and that sort of thing. Director John Carpenter, of course, 0:25:22.680 --> 0:25:25.439 grew up as a fan of all these westerns and 0:25:25.840 --> 0:25:29.480 cast him as police Commissioner Bob Hawk in the nineteen 0:25:29.520 --> 0:25:33.359 eighty one classic Escape from New York picture, where I 0:25:33.359 --> 0:25:36.199 think Van Cleeve really shines. This is one of my 0:25:36.200 --> 0:25:38.919 favorite supporting characters, I think, probably of all time, one 0:25:38.920 --> 0:25:42.040 of those supporting characters that leaves you wanting more and 0:25:42.119 --> 0:25:45.560 has some interesting hooks about where this character has been 0:25:45.640 --> 0:25:47.919 and where they might be going, and you want to 0:25:47.960 --> 0:25:50.119 know those stories. But of course the film doesn't take 0:25:50.200 --> 0:25:52.480 us there. It just teases us with these possibilities. 0:25:52.800 --> 0:25:54.959 Yeah, and of course I love him. And The Good, 0:25:55.000 --> 0:25:56.399 the Bad and the Ugly. The Good, the Bad, and 0:25:56.440 --> 0:25:59.480 the Ugly is a movie of many villains. Two main 0:25:59.600 --> 0:26:02.200 villains sort of alluded to in the title there. One 0:26:02.320 --> 0:26:06.679 is played by Eli Wallach, who is the more humorous 0:26:06.720 --> 0:26:10.480 and talkative of the sort of villainish characters with kind 0:26:10.480 --> 0:26:14.119 of shifting loyalties. But Lee van Kleef's character is the 0:26:14.359 --> 0:26:19.000 very straight, hard, bad, mysterious, serious villain. 0:26:19.520 --> 0:26:23.600 Nice. Now, at this point in levan Cleef's career fifty six, 0:26:23.920 --> 0:26:26.560 he'd already had a few years experience in TV and film, 0:26:27.119 --> 0:26:29.359 but with loads of credits as you often see, like 0:26:29.920 --> 0:26:32.919 he was working a lot. Let's see, he'd made his 0:26:32.960 --> 0:26:35.720 film debut in the Oscar winning western High Noon from 0:26:35.760 --> 0:26:38.359 fifty two, and in fifty three he was in The 0:26:38.359 --> 0:26:41.760 Beast from twenty Thousand Fathoms. He acted in again a 0:26:41.840 --> 0:26:46.320 lot of westerns and crime projects throughout his filmography. But 0:26:47.200 --> 0:26:50.720 one of the interesting things is that this film The 0:26:50.760 --> 0:26:53.280 Beast from twenty Thousand Fathoms and Escape from New York 0:26:53.359 --> 0:26:56.080 those are apparently the only three sci fi or horror 0:26:56.160 --> 0:26:59.240 pictures that he ever did, though I believe he did 0:26:59.240 --> 0:27:01.680 act in at least one sci fi TV series in 0:27:01.720 --> 0:27:05.320 the early fifties, and he played a ninja on TV's 0:27:05.359 --> 0:27:07.680 The Master in the mid eighties, but you know that 0:27:07.760 --> 0:27:11.160 wasn't sci fi or horror, and so in this picture, yeah, 0:27:11.200 --> 0:27:15.879 he is Anderson, a disgruntled physicist whose big ideas about 0:27:15.880 --> 0:27:19.560 aliens have pushed him outside of the mainstream. But then, 0:27:19.600 --> 0:27:22.239 of course the picture of centers around the fact that 0:27:22.280 --> 0:27:25.560 he ends up making actual contact with an alien intelligence 0:27:25.800 --> 0:27:28.439 from the planet Venus, and it places him in the 0:27:28.560 --> 0:27:31.719 role of well, it could be Earth's savior or perhaps 0:27:31.800 --> 0:27:35.320 it's destroyer for a lot of the picture, it depends 0:27:36.119 --> 0:27:38.239 which side of the philosophical debate you're on. 0:27:38.720 --> 0:27:41.600 There are a lot of interesting things about the way 0:27:41.680 --> 0:27:45.160 this character is written and the way Van Cleef plays him. 0:27:46.160 --> 0:27:50.320 So the character is in some ways portrayed as a crank, 0:27:50.600 --> 0:27:54.160 like he has these ideas that are not accepted by 0:27:54.160 --> 0:27:59.399 other scientists or by the civil leadership, and they have 0:27:59.560 --> 0:28:02.560 to do with aliens, of course, and nobody pays attention 0:28:02.600 --> 0:28:04.359 to him. They're just like, ah, he's going off on 0:28:04.400 --> 0:28:07.720 his favorite subject again, and this makes him embittered the 0:28:07.760 --> 0:28:10.360 fact that nobody's paying attention to him, which I think 0:28:10.440 --> 0:28:13.560 is pretty interesting because that is, you know, it almost 0:28:13.640 --> 0:28:16.080 makes me think of when when sun Zoo came up 0:28:16.160 --> 0:28:20.439 recently in our episodes about the Ninja, where you know, 0:28:20.480 --> 0:28:23.920 he's talking about who to find within the enemy's ranks 0:28:24.000 --> 0:28:26.320 to recruit to your side, to be it to be 0:28:26.359 --> 0:28:29.679 a secret agent and betray the enemy. And one of 0:28:29.680 --> 0:28:31.880 the things he says is look for someone who has 0:28:31.960 --> 0:28:37.000 who feels they have been mistreated or unappreciated by enemy leadership, 0:28:37.280 --> 0:28:40.520 someone who feels their genius is not being made use 0:28:40.600 --> 0:28:41.560 of by the enemy. 0:28:42.080 --> 0:28:43.280 Yeah, yeah, that matches up. 0:28:43.680 --> 0:28:47.160 So he's portrayed as simultaneously like in some ways an 0:28:47.160 --> 0:28:50.720 appreciated scientific genius, but also at the same time a 0:28:50.800 --> 0:28:53.520 crying who people are, you know, dismissive of at least 0:28:53.520 --> 0:28:58.320 with his ideas about aliens. But then he also, interestingly, 0:28:59.240 --> 0:29:03.120 I would say, he plays this scientist character in a 0:29:03.120 --> 0:29:08.280 way that's very texturally different than most scientist characters in 0:29:08.400 --> 0:29:10.880 horror and sci fi movies of the fifties, who are 0:29:10.920 --> 0:29:16.120 usually portrayed as very straight laced and with high social 0:29:16.280 --> 0:29:19.920 class signifiers in the way they speak. Van Cleef's character 0:29:20.000 --> 0:29:21.960 does not come off that way. He is playing a 0:29:22.000 --> 0:29:28.640 physicist who has a more rough, aggressive and kind of 0:29:29.520 --> 0:29:32.560 sounds like he has probably working class origins and and 0:29:32.760 --> 0:29:36.719 speaks with a speaks with a distinctive voice, rather than 0:29:36.720 --> 0:29:41.480 the kind of formal or character free way that a 0:29:41.480 --> 0:29:44.120 lot of scientist characters in these movies talk. 0:29:44.480 --> 0:29:47.000 Yeah, yeah, you're right. He does stand out in that regard, 0:29:47.680 --> 0:29:50.760 and it's interesting too, like his some of his ideas, 0:29:50.920 --> 0:29:53.360 especially the ones we hear about early on, like you 0:29:53.400 --> 0:29:55.800 know that they are actual ideas that are sometimes batted 0:29:55.840 --> 0:29:59.520 around concerning the possibility of extraterrestrials, like the idea that 0:29:59.520 --> 0:30:04.840 they're waking and that they might interfere if they didn't 0:30:05.040 --> 0:30:07.360 like some development that was happening here. You know, like 0:30:07.600 --> 0:30:09.440 some of these ideas, you know, they're they're not they're 0:30:09.480 --> 0:30:13.120 not out of line with with some of the speculative 0:30:13.400 --> 0:30:17.560 notions that are discussed regarding alien intelligence. Uh. And then 0:30:17.600 --> 0:30:21.440 of course it ends up taking on this this higher 0:30:21.480 --> 0:30:24.720 purpose that he sees, the idea that through contact with 0:30:24.800 --> 0:30:27.720 aliens we can save ourselves. And of course this is 0:30:27.760 --> 0:30:32.320 a common theme in ufology. And and then I guess 0:30:32.360 --> 0:30:36.640 in some like serious contemplations on what first contact would 0:30:36.720 --> 0:30:40.680 mean for humans, uh, you know, the possibility that it 0:30:40.760 --> 0:30:44.520 could greatly improve life on Earth if we had outside 0:30:44.560 --> 0:30:47.600 contacts something some other force that could help us fix 0:30:47.640 --> 0:30:48.280 our problems. 0:30:48.640 --> 0:30:51.480 I don't know if we've talked about this recently, maybe 0:30:51.480 --> 0:30:54.640 it's come up on the show before, but I noticed 0:30:54.720 --> 0:30:59.680 a pretty strong tendency these days for beliefs about UFOs 0:30:59.720 --> 0:31:04.480 and alien life to essentially merge with religious thinking, for 0:31:04.560 --> 0:31:08.240 it to be actually not really separate propositions at all. 0:31:08.320 --> 0:31:12.000 The like a lot of people who believe strongly in 0:31:12.200 --> 0:31:16.840 UFOs and alien presence on earth these days, that belief 0:31:16.880 --> 0:31:20.520 sort of edges into ideas about them being spiritual or 0:31:20.520 --> 0:31:24.040 heavenly beings that are in some way going to save us. 0:31:24.480 --> 0:31:27.920 Yeah, yeah, it is. It is a common theme. I've 0:31:27.920 --> 0:31:31.400 seen it in crystal shops too, and actual and ashual. 0:31:31.640 --> 0:31:34.480 You'll have crystals for your christ consciousness, and then on 0:31:34.520 --> 0:31:39.640 the next table you got crystals for aliens re exterrestrial. 0:31:40.400 --> 0:31:41.840 I guess you can grab one of each, you know, 0:31:41.920 --> 0:31:44.560 put one in each palm, mix them up, mix and match. 0:31:53.400 --> 0:31:56.960 Oh but Lee Van Cleef's character Tom Anderson, doctor Tom 0:31:56.960 --> 0:32:01.160 Anderson here is the husband of Claire and who is 0:32:01.240 --> 0:32:04.440 also a very interesting character in this movie, played by 0:32:04.480 --> 0:32:05.320 Beverly Garland. 0:32:05.680 --> 0:32:09.200 Oh yes, Beverly Garland, who, to be clear, has second 0:32:09.200 --> 0:32:12.160 billing in the picture. Even though we're discussing her fourth, 0:32:12.360 --> 0:32:14.120 I want to stress that she did have second billing. 0:32:14.400 --> 0:32:18.760 Her performance here is great. It's spirited, and she she 0:32:18.800 --> 0:32:21.360 plays she doesn't just play like a damsel or some 0:32:21.720 --> 0:32:23.960 character who's just kind of like, oh honey, I wish 0:32:23.960 --> 0:32:26.560 you wouldn't betray humanity to the aliens. 0:32:26.880 --> 0:32:27.000 Like. 0:32:27.360 --> 0:32:31.480 She is supportive, like fiercely supportive, but she is also 0:32:31.920 --> 0:32:34.520 very skeptical and she voices her skepticism and in the 0:32:34.600 --> 0:32:37.160 end she's at she's more than willing to fight for 0:32:37.440 --> 0:32:40.479 the man she loves and the planet she loves in 0:32:40.520 --> 0:32:43.720 a really inspiring fashion like this is ultimately, especially for 0:32:43.760 --> 0:32:46.080 this era, this is a pretty strong role and she 0:32:46.160 --> 0:32:48.680 does a great job with it, like any she now. 0:32:48.720 --> 0:32:52.520 To be clear, occasionally she has some some some maybe 0:32:52.560 --> 0:32:54.840 not all about thought out lines she has to work with, 0:32:55.760 --> 0:32:58.720 but even then, like Beverly Garland, gives it her all 0:32:58.880 --> 0:33:01.640 and she makes those those lines live on the screen 0:33:01.960 --> 0:33:04.280 when they should have been that they shouldn't have had 0:33:04.280 --> 0:33:05.160 as much life to them. 0:33:05.520 --> 0:33:07.560 Well, that's the part where she's talking to Leaving Kleef. 0:33:07.840 --> 0:33:09.840 They're in the middle of talking about aliens, by the way, 0:33:10.080 --> 0:33:12.520 and she says something like I'll stay with you not 0:33:12.680 --> 0:33:15.280 just because you're my husband, but because I love you. 0:33:16.080 --> 0:33:19.200 Yeah, lines like that. She usually fighting for her life 0:33:19.240 --> 0:33:21.840 with lines like that that. She does a great job. 0:33:22.000 --> 0:33:24.720 Now, but yeah, she has to manage. I think a 0:33:25.000 --> 0:33:30.480 difficult character here, who's like her motivations shift over the 0:33:30.520 --> 0:33:33.440 course of the movies. She's always conflicted, but at the 0:33:33.480 --> 0:33:36.960 beginning of the movie she's conflicted because she loves her husband, 0:33:37.080 --> 0:33:40.000 but she thinks he's losing his mind. She thinks that 0:33:40.080 --> 0:33:45.800 he is having delusions of contact with alien life. But 0:33:45.960 --> 0:33:49.000 then when it becomes clear he is actually talking to 0:33:49.040 --> 0:33:51.360 an alien and he was right all along and she 0:33:51.560 --> 0:33:54.360 was wrong for doubting him. Then it shifts to her 0:33:54.680 --> 0:33:58.959 realizing that his vindication is not a good thing because 0:33:59.000 --> 0:34:02.640 it means that he actually partnering with this alien to 0:34:02.680 --> 0:34:06.480 take over the planet and destroy everything that she holds sacred, 0:34:06.680 --> 0:34:09.040 and so she makes a case to him. This movie 0:34:09.080 --> 0:34:12.480 involves a lot of scenes of people just like laying 0:34:12.520 --> 0:34:15.960 out an argument for why Earth should not be conquered, 0:34:16.320 --> 0:34:18.959 and she does great in those scenes, like she sort 0:34:18.960 --> 0:34:23.360 of brings things up to Lea VanClief about what this 0:34:23.440 --> 0:34:26.600 alien conquest would mean for their family and their marriage, 0:34:26.680 --> 0:34:29.160 and it's like things that he hadn't occurred to him before. 0:34:29.680 --> 0:34:34.640 Yeah, yeah, so again, love this performance. Beverly Garland lived 0:34:34.719 --> 0:34:37.160 nineteen twenty six through two thousand and eight. She'd been 0:34:37.280 --> 0:34:40.439 enacting in TV and films since I think nineteen forty 0:34:40.520 --> 0:34:44.640 nine at this point, and It Conquered the World seems 0:34:44.680 --> 0:34:46.760 to have led to a number of additional low budget 0:34:46.800 --> 0:34:50.000 sci fi films. Though she'd also act in supporting roles 0:34:50.040 --> 0:34:53.360 on bigger pictures and of course on TV. For instance, 0:34:53.400 --> 0:34:55.759 I think at least at one point, most people would 0:34:55.800 --> 0:34:58.400 be familiar with her from her role on TV's My 0:34:58.520 --> 0:35:02.399 Three Sons, But she also appeared in such films as 0:35:02.400 --> 0:35:06.759 fifty six's Caruku, Beast of the Amazon, Not at This 0:35:06.840 --> 0:35:08.880 Earth in fifty seven, so we have discussed her on 0:35:08.920 --> 0:35:12.920 the show before The Alligator People in fifty nine, Twice, 0:35:12.960 --> 0:35:15.759 Told Tales in fifty three, Pretty Poison in sixty eight, 0:35:15.800 --> 0:35:18.719 in Airports seventy five in seventy four? 0:35:19.239 --> 0:35:23.960 Is Alligator People a sci fi horror movie where like 0:35:23.960 --> 0:35:27.080 a mad scientist is turning people into alligators and a swamp? 0:35:27.360 --> 0:35:28.920 Yep, that's the one, okay. 0:35:29.360 --> 0:35:32.600 I wonder if is that the movie that is being 0:35:32.719 --> 0:35:35.680 referenced in the Rocky Ericsson song It's a Cold Night 0:35:35.719 --> 0:35:36.640 for Alligators. 0:35:36.680 --> 0:35:40.160 I believe this is widely accepted, yes, okay, with as 0:35:40.239 --> 0:35:44.520 much clarity as we can have regarding what Rocky's singing 0:35:44.560 --> 0:35:46.759 about exactly in a number of these songs. But I 0:35:46.800 --> 0:35:49.520 think that is often pointed too, is the reference point 0:35:49.560 --> 0:35:51.719 for that awesome song. 0:35:52.040 --> 0:35:53.839 If you don't know what we're talking about, and you're 0:35:53.880 --> 0:35:56.520 in the mood for some B movie themed rock and roll, 0:35:56.560 --> 0:35:59.239 go listen to the Rocky Ericsson album The Evil One, 0:35:59.360 --> 0:36:02.560 produced by Do Cook. Yeah, it has this song on it, 0:36:02.560 --> 0:36:04.920 It's a Cold Night for Alligators, has the great line 0:36:05.040 --> 0:36:07.880 the dogs choke on their barking when they see alligator 0:36:07.920 --> 0:36:09.640 persons in the bog and fog. 0:36:10.239 --> 0:36:14.520 Oh. Yeah, great album, especially for October. Highly recommend putting 0:36:14.520 --> 0:36:14.920 that one on. 0:36:15.400 --> 0:36:18.239 I've listened to this one so many times. It's a 0:36:18.280 --> 0:36:19.239 personal favorite. 0:36:19.760 --> 0:36:21.879 All right. Getting into some of the bit performers here, 0:36:21.920 --> 0:36:23.839 and we have to mention Dick Miller is in this 0:36:23.920 --> 0:36:28.200 of course, legendary character actor and Corman mainstay who in 0:36:28.280 --> 0:36:31.640 nineteen twenty eight through twenty nineteen, he plays Sergeant Neil here, 0:36:31.640 --> 0:36:33.360 who I guess kind of he heads up the x 0:36:33.400 --> 0:36:35.880 comm squad of soldiers who are going to help us 0:36:35.880 --> 0:36:38.600 do battle with the aliens eventually, but mostly they just 0:36:38.640 --> 0:36:39.520 wander through the woods. 0:36:39.880 --> 0:36:42.760 They're primarily comic relief. They wander around in the woods 0:36:42.960 --> 0:36:45.680 that they stand guard at gates. They make wise cracks. 0:36:45.719 --> 0:36:48.400 Dick Miller makes some very nineteen fifties like eh, my 0:36:48.520 --> 0:36:49.360 wife jokes. 0:36:49.640 --> 0:36:53.240 Yeah, Yeah, there's a He has a lot of interaction 0:36:53.400 --> 0:36:56.840 with the private Manuel Ortiz, who has been in this picture, 0:36:56.840 --> 0:37:00.880 played by Jonathan Hayes More nineteen twenty nine American actor, 0:37:00.880 --> 0:37:03.879 best known for his work in Corman films, especially Little 0:37:03.880 --> 0:37:07.080 Shop of Mars, in which he played the main character Seymour. 0:37:07.880 --> 0:37:10.000 He was also in fifty seven's Not of This Earth 0:37:10.000 --> 0:37:12.800 and pops up in the nineteen eighty two wings Howser 0:37:12.840 --> 0:37:17.480 film Vice Squad. This is a bit comedic role, and 0:37:17.960 --> 0:37:20.279 I say not a shining moment in his filmography. 0:37:20.680 --> 0:37:21.560 N don't love it. 0:37:22.000 --> 0:37:23.360 And let's see who else we have. Oh, we have 0:37:23.440 --> 0:37:27.200 Russ Bender here playing Bridgidier. General James Patrick he lived 0:37:27.280 --> 0:37:31.920 nineteen ten through nineteen sixty nine. General, American B movie 0:37:31.960 --> 0:37:35.239 actor often played these kind of like authority figures. He 0:37:35.320 --> 0:37:37.680 was also in fifty seven's The Amazing Colossal Man and 0:37:37.800 --> 0:37:40.160 fifty eight War of the Colossal Beast that plays a 0:37:40.160 --> 0:37:41.319 different character in each. 0:37:41.719 --> 0:37:43.840 Now, Rob, I think we've got to talk about the 0:37:43.880 --> 0:37:48.160 special effects here, especially the creation of the monster suit, 0:37:48.360 --> 0:37:52.239 because I have read some behind the scenes accounts of 0:37:52.440 --> 0:37:57.080 even the crew and cast at the time reacting with 0:37:57.320 --> 0:38:01.560 disbelief at this monster. There's a famous story of Beverly 0:38:01.600 --> 0:38:04.680 Garland being like that conquered the world. 0:38:06.440 --> 0:38:11.560 Yeah, yeah, the benefactor the monster here was designed and 0:38:11.840 --> 0:38:15.000 monster suited by Paul Blasdell, who I've talked about on 0:38:15.040 --> 0:38:19.080 the show before because he is responsible for some very 0:38:19.320 --> 0:38:23.319 iconic monster designs from this time period, including it the 0:38:23.400 --> 0:38:25.600 Terror from Beyond Space that we recently talked about on 0:38:25.640 --> 0:38:27.839 the show that was great. Yeah. 0:38:27.880 --> 0:38:28.080 Yeah. 0:38:28.120 --> 0:38:32.160 He lived nineteen twenty seven through nineteen eighty three, responsible 0:38:32.280 --> 0:38:34.800 for let's see, what are some of the other creatures, 0:38:34.800 --> 0:38:37.040 the Beast with a Million Eyes and the Day the 0:38:37.040 --> 0:38:40.879 World Ended from fifty five Not of this Earth, which 0:38:41.040 --> 0:38:43.799 I thought those were pretty cool little saucer creatures in there, 0:38:44.440 --> 0:38:48.080 Invasion of the Saucer Men Teenagers from Outer Space, which 0:38:48.320 --> 0:38:50.719 has a great dog zapping scene in it where the 0:38:51.080 --> 0:38:52.920 one of the alien zaps a dog and turns it 0:38:52.920 --> 0:38:56.279 to bones. So you know, he's involved in a lot 0:38:56.280 --> 0:38:59.360 of stuff in his designs. Have they have a signature 0:38:59.400 --> 0:39:03.719 look to them, which is great and has and is 0:39:03.760 --> 0:39:06.680 you know, kind of worshiped by people who love nineteen 0:39:06.719 --> 0:39:09.840 fifties B movies, like they're model kits of the monster 0:39:09.960 --> 0:39:12.760 from this picture. But at the end of the day, 0:39:13.080 --> 0:39:18.720 it is also ineffective. Is it is a goofy looking 0:39:18.760 --> 0:39:22.880 monster that does not inspire terror, that is it great 0:39:22.920 --> 0:39:28.520 pains to convincingly interact with human actors. It just ultimately 0:39:28.560 --> 0:39:31.080 falls flat. But you can't help but love it at 0:39:31.080 --> 0:39:31.720 the same time. 0:39:32.200 --> 0:39:36.880 It's like, I, how did I actually think it is 0:39:36.960 --> 0:39:39.880 a kind of great design if you were just going 0:39:39.920 --> 0:39:43.719 to say, focus on the face and the shape of 0:39:43.760 --> 0:39:46.400 it and render it as an illustration or something. And 0:39:46.640 --> 0:39:48.680 that's why I think it works quite well on the 0:39:48.680 --> 0:39:53.040 movie poster. It just doesn't work as a physically embodied 0:39:53.120 --> 0:39:55.920 prop moving and interacting with actors. 0:39:56.520 --> 0:39:59.359 Yeah, it looks and I'm not the first to make 0:39:59.680 --> 0:40:02.560 some some of these comparisons to it, but it looks 0:40:02.600 --> 0:40:06.560 like the mascot the demonic mascot for an artichoke Heart company, Like, 0:40:06.600 --> 0:40:10.239 it looks like a big artichoke heart with tentacles or 0:40:10.320 --> 0:40:15.680 tentacle arm clawed arm things. And it apparently at one 0:40:15.719 --> 0:40:17.880 point it didn't have that conical head. It was like 0:40:18.000 --> 0:40:21.080 flat because they were like, well it's Venus and they're 0:40:21.160 --> 0:40:23.120 headed in their minds. Well, it would be crushed flat 0:40:23.160 --> 0:40:26.360 by the gravity. I don't know, we know that's that 0:40:26.520 --> 0:40:29.080 wouldn't exactly be the case it was crushed, it would 0:40:29.120 --> 0:40:32.319 be by the atmosphere. But at any rate, they put 0:40:32.320 --> 0:40:34.040 it on set and they realized, no, this thing's way 0:40:34.040 --> 0:40:36.000 too short. We've got to make it taller. So let's 0:40:36.040 --> 0:40:39.719 just make its head like an inverted ice cream cone. 0:40:39.760 --> 0:40:40.520 And that's what they did. 0:40:40.800 --> 0:40:43.600 I think that I've read that the cast were comparing 0:40:43.600 --> 0:40:45.640 it to an ice cream cone on the set because 0:40:45.640 --> 0:40:49.239 it's got a conical head, no body, and arms coming 0:40:49.239 --> 0:40:51.719 out of the side of its head. There's a great 0:40:51.760 --> 0:40:53.719 part in the movie where it's it's got sort of 0:40:53.760 --> 0:40:56.360 a little like, you know, a round skirt around the 0:40:56.440 --> 0:40:58.840 bottom of it, and it starts just sort of pooping 0:40:58.840 --> 0:41:02.520 out these little bat that fly away the mind control bats. 0:41:03.280 --> 0:41:03.400 Uh. 0:41:04.040 --> 0:41:06.640 But as you said, artichoke, I've always thought of it 0:41:06.640 --> 0:41:08.160 as an art to choke. It is an art to 0:41:08.239 --> 0:41:08.960 choke from hell. 0:41:11.320 --> 0:41:14.880 If you look up images of the original costume, it 0:41:15.120 --> 0:41:19.600 uh it was apparently read. Its name on set was Beulah. 0:41:19.640 --> 0:41:25.319 I believe Paul Blastell called it as such himself. Oftentimes 0:41:25.360 --> 0:41:29.320 these monster effects have like little pet names behind the scenes, 0:41:29.320 --> 0:41:32.319 and this was Beulah. And uh, yeah, I mean it. 0:41:32.320 --> 0:41:35.600 It it's it's a it's a terrible and amazing design 0:41:35.600 --> 0:41:37.800 at the same time, it's like it's it has stood 0:41:37.800 --> 0:41:41.760 the test of time. People love it, and it looks evil, 0:41:41.800 --> 0:41:44.720 it looks like it's up to no good. Yes, yeah, 0:41:44.760 --> 0:41:46.640 And I don't want to be too hard on it. 0:41:46.680 --> 0:41:49.440 There are maybe a couple of scenes with it that 0:41:49.440 --> 0:41:53.480 that do resonate, and it's its interactions to the human 0:41:53.520 --> 0:41:57.239 actors are not entirely unconvincing, but clearly it needed a 0:41:57.239 --> 0:41:57.800 lot of help. 0:41:59.400 --> 0:42:01.000 Well, it's one of those things where you know the 0:42:01.120 --> 0:42:04.840 scene in ed Wood where Bella Legosi is being attacked 0:42:04.840 --> 0:42:07.080 by the octopus, but they don't have the motor to 0:42:07.080 --> 0:42:08.920 make its arms move, so he's got to kind of 0:42:08.960 --> 0:42:14.200 throw the arms around himself. There's a similar thing happening 0:42:14.239 --> 0:42:18.600 in this movie where it can't really be made to 0:42:19.000 --> 0:42:24.200 in a perspective shot, be made to attack people, so 0:42:24.360 --> 0:42:27.520 instead we see people leaping into its claws. 0:42:28.080 --> 0:42:31.759 Yeah, like you run at it, sort of skid into 0:42:31.760 --> 0:42:34.920 its claws and then go flat. And like there's one 0:42:34.960 --> 0:42:38.120 scene in particular where the stunt person or actor doing 0:42:38.160 --> 0:42:40.600 this like really goes for it, really eats it and 0:42:40.840 --> 0:42:43.240 makes it look good. And I was like, yeah, all right, 0:42:43.840 --> 0:42:46.799 it's looking alive now. But like again, it takes a 0:42:46.800 --> 0:42:49.600 lot of help for this thing to look even halfway 0:42:49.600 --> 0:42:50.960 believable on the screen. 0:42:51.080 --> 0:42:53.120 Like for the people who get mulled by it are 0:42:53.239 --> 0:42:56.000 essentially like a puppy running up to somebody for a hug. 0:42:56.320 --> 0:43:00.600 Yeah. At the same time, I will acknowledge that part 0:43:00.640 --> 0:43:04.040 of the plot is that the thing can't move around 0:43:04.040 --> 0:43:06.319 all that well and it's kind of like isolated, so 0:43:06.640 --> 0:43:07.080 I don't know. 0:43:07.480 --> 0:43:10.239 Yeah, that's sort of a revelation, right, Like Lee van 0:43:10.320 --> 0:43:13.440 Kleef is all about, Oh, it's super powerful, it's perfect, 0:43:13.480 --> 0:43:16.319 it can do anything. But Beverly Garland is like, wait 0:43:16.360 --> 0:43:18.919 a minute, but it can't leave this cave and it's 0:43:18.960 --> 0:43:21.520 like stuck theirs and it needs people to do its 0:43:21.560 --> 0:43:23.480 dirty work. That makes it sound like it's not as 0:43:23.560 --> 0:43:26.560 powerful as you think. And she's got a point. Yeah, 0:43:26.600 --> 0:43:32.520 maybe it's supposed to look somewhat awkward and unable to 0:43:33.360 --> 0:43:37.080 act very effectively within Earth's atmosphere because it's not from 0:43:37.120 --> 0:43:39.399 here and it needs people to do its job for it. 0:43:39.800 --> 0:43:42.759 Yeah, but it is highly intelligent and highly manipulative, as 0:43:42.800 --> 0:43:45.560 we'll get into all right. One final note on the 0:43:45.640 --> 0:43:49.239 music for this picture, though the music is nothing really remarkable, 0:43:49.280 --> 0:43:51.600 But the music is credited to Ronald Stein, who lived 0:43:51.640 --> 0:43:54.360 nineteen thirty through nineteen eighty eight, composer who worked on 0:43:54.360 --> 0:43:57.760 a lot of low budget films, particularly for American international pictures, 0:43:58.600 --> 0:44:00.400 the likes of Not of This Earth, The Attack of 0:44:00.440 --> 0:44:03.959 the Crab, Monster's Queen of Blood, Dementia thirteen, and more, 0:44:04.640 --> 0:44:08.239 including The Rain People, Francis Ford Coppola's picture prior to 0:44:08.280 --> 0:44:08.920 the Godfather. 0:44:09.440 --> 0:44:13.000 I didn't really notice much about the music itself one 0:44:13.040 --> 0:44:15.800 of the so the music wasn't bad, it wasn't great. 0:44:16.160 --> 0:44:19.320 But one thing I did notice that was quite funny 0:44:19.480 --> 0:44:23.279 was the pairing of certain pieces of music with what 0:44:23.520 --> 0:44:25.799 was happening on the screen. Rob did you notice that 0:44:26.239 --> 0:44:29.319 some of the most dramatic music in the movie was, like, 0:44:29.600 --> 0:44:32.160 while we were watching Peter Graves do a three point 0:44:32.200 --> 0:44:33.080 turn in a truck. 0:44:34.239 --> 0:44:36.400 I did. I don't think I really made note of that, 0:44:36.520 --> 0:44:38.719 But I always think when I think music in this 0:44:38.880 --> 0:44:42.239 I think about the musical stinger to the monologue where 0:44:42.840 --> 0:44:46.040 he finishes the monologue and then you hear bomb bomb, 0:44:46.080 --> 0:44:48.799 bomb bomb, or something to that effect, you know, just 0:44:48.960 --> 0:44:51.920 really just punctuating the whole message. 0:44:52.360 --> 0:44:55.040 Yeah, I agree, with that up. But it is funny 0:44:55.080 --> 0:44:57.680 getting the like the real like the strings are ascending 0:44:57.880 --> 0:45:01.200 as they're literally somebody coming out of itway. 0:45:02.080 --> 0:45:04.120 Yeah, there are whole scenes in this film boere it's like, well, 0:45:04.160 --> 0:45:06.520 I drove up all the way, now I've got to 0:45:06.560 --> 0:45:08.439 go back, so I'll go back. 0:45:08.840 --> 0:45:11.959 Yeah, let me turn around, go back down this winding road. 0:45:12.000 --> 0:45:14.440 We sell people go up these s curves. I don't know, 0:45:14.600 --> 0:45:15.920 like five or six times. 0:45:16.239 --> 0:45:27.520 Yeah, all right, well let's get into the plot of 0:45:27.680 --> 0:45:29.280 it Conquered the World. 0:45:29.680 --> 0:45:33.680 Okay, Well, the action begins with a bunch of scientists 0:45:33.800 --> 0:45:36.200 in a lab at what I think is an air 0:45:36.200 --> 0:45:39.279 force base. It's a military installation of some kind. You 0:45:39.400 --> 0:45:43.000 got technicians in white coats, electronic equipment beeping all over 0:45:43.040 --> 0:45:45.680 the place, these big view screens on the walls, and 0:45:45.960 --> 0:45:49.400 radar pinging with contacts from the sky. And here in 0:45:49.520 --> 0:45:52.600 command of all this is doctor Paul Nelson. That's again 0:45:52.680 --> 0:45:56.160 Peter Graves. The people in this lab are preparing for 0:45:56.239 --> 0:45:59.920 a satellite launch. And note that this movie was released 0:46:00.080 --> 0:46:03.719 in nineteen fifty six, which was a year before the 0:46:03.800 --> 0:46:07.440 Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first ever artificial satellite to 0:46:07.480 --> 0:46:10.839 achieve orbit. So what is being depicted here was at 0:46:10.840 --> 0:46:14.000 the time pure science fiction. Humans had not yet at 0:46:14.000 --> 0:46:17.040 the time of this movie put a satellite into orbit. 0:46:17.520 --> 0:46:19.160 Yeah, it's always fun to sort of put these in 0:46:19.200 --> 0:46:23.040 the perspective of where we actually were with the space 0:46:23.080 --> 0:46:24.160 exploration at the time. 0:46:24.440 --> 0:46:28.400 Yeah. Yeah, So some of the chatter between the scientists 0:46:28.400 --> 0:46:31.680 in the room reveals that the satellite program costs nine 0:46:31.800 --> 0:46:36.000 million dollars. Wow, and it is at moderate risk of 0:46:36.080 --> 0:46:40.200 crashing into an unrelated airplane during a liftoff. They're like, oh, 0:46:40.280 --> 0:46:44.040 I better get that plane out of the way. Peter Graves, 0:46:44.920 --> 0:46:49.520 he's got sort of corny, overwrought moments pretty much immediately, 0:46:49.640 --> 0:46:53.719 Like in this very first scene, one of the technicians says, 0:46:53.760 --> 0:46:57.000 you know, all systems are ago, and Graves looks almost 0:46:57.000 --> 0:47:01.120 directly into the camera and says, then man is finally 0:47:01.160 --> 0:47:02.760 ready to move into space. 0:47:03.719 --> 0:47:07.000 But these lines are perfect for Graves. Yeah, they're they're 0:47:07.080 --> 0:47:09.920 over the top, but like man, he delivers them like 0:47:10.000 --> 0:47:10.600 few others. 0:47:10.840 --> 0:47:14.319 Well, I can just imagine, like, you know, Joan, his 0:47:14.400 --> 0:47:17.799 wife bakes him a macaroni and cheese TV dinner and 0:47:17.840 --> 0:47:19.560 sets it down in front of him, and he looks 0:47:19.640 --> 0:47:23.239 up and says, men is finally ready to achieve sustenance. 0:47:24.920 --> 0:47:27.880 So from here we go into a general's office to 0:47:28.000 --> 0:47:31.680 meet our next main character, Tom Anderson. That's leave Enkleef. 0:47:32.400 --> 0:47:35.719 And in this scene we learned that Tom Anderson is 0:47:35.760 --> 0:47:40.960 a highly accomplished and respected physicist with quote every degree imaginable, 0:47:41.000 --> 0:47:43.040 So I guess that means he also has an MBA, 0:47:43.160 --> 0:47:46.240 he's got a you know, an accounting degree, all that stuff. 0:47:47.040 --> 0:47:51.680 He once worked on something called the perpetual missile project. 0:47:51.800 --> 0:47:53.839 I was trying to imagine what could that mean? A 0:47:53.880 --> 0:47:56.320 missile that is a missile that lasts forever. 0:47:56.480 --> 0:47:58.640 What I don't know. My best guess is that it 0:47:58.680 --> 0:48:02.040 is maybe something like the supersonic low altitude missile or 0:48:02.080 --> 0:48:05.920 SLAM concept in the mid fifties, or just pure technobabble 0:48:06.040 --> 0:48:07.879 like it could be. It could be. 0:48:07.880 --> 0:48:12.719 Either perpetual missile, but anyway, we discover that Tom has 0:48:12.960 --> 0:48:17.000 lately developed some fringe ideas that are a cause for 0:48:17.120 --> 0:48:20.799 concern to the military leadership and to his colleagues. This 0:48:20.840 --> 0:48:23.719 has led to a sort of career exile. The way 0:48:23.760 --> 0:48:27.399 he explains it, Van Cleef says, there are a lot 0:48:27.440 --> 0:48:30.320 of fat heads who are not ready to hear the truth, 0:48:31.239 --> 0:48:34.360 and you know, it's classic crank behavior. People don't accept 0:48:34.400 --> 0:48:37.520 my ideas because they are stupid and wicked and want 0:48:37.520 --> 0:48:40.759 to hide the truth. Which, you know, it's funny. I 0:48:40.840 --> 0:48:43.000 understand exactly why this is, because it makes for a 0:48:43.000 --> 0:48:46.799 better storytelling dynamic. But it is kind of unfortunate that 0:48:46.960 --> 0:48:49.080 most of the time in the movies the people who 0:48:49.120 --> 0:48:53.920 act like this are proven right. Yeah, yeah, but anyway, 0:48:54.040 --> 0:48:57.080 so Van Kleef, he's imploring the General to call off 0:48:57.120 --> 0:49:01.680 the satellite project before it launches. Well, it seems that 0:49:01.800 --> 0:49:04.920 a smaller satellite that the space program tried to launch 0:49:04.960 --> 0:49:08.920 some time ago exploded before it reached orbit, and Anderson 0:49:09.040 --> 0:49:11.759 says that this was no mere accident. It was a 0:49:11.840 --> 0:49:16.560 warning from someone out there. Other planets in our Solar 0:49:16.600 --> 0:49:19.839 system are watching us closely every minute of every day 0:49:20.200 --> 0:49:22.880 to make sure that we don't put anything into space, 0:49:23.000 --> 0:49:26.239 because if we do, that means we're a threat to them, 0:49:26.480 --> 0:49:28.840 and if we're a threat to them, they may choose 0:49:28.880 --> 0:49:31.960 to destroy us. So for the sake of all humankind, 0:49:31.960 --> 0:49:33.640 we've got to stop this whole project. 0:49:34.239 --> 0:49:36.080 Yeah, And as I alluded to earlier, this is not 0:49:36.200 --> 0:49:39.480 a crazy concept in and of itself. In the nineteen eighties, 0:49:39.480 --> 0:49:43.080 for example, cosmologist Edward Harrison argued that the first life 0:49:43.080 --> 0:49:47.279 form to achieve a certain level of interstellar technology, at 0:49:47.320 --> 0:49:52.160 least within certain distances, because of course the universe is 0:49:52.600 --> 0:49:56.279 so vast, but the first civilization to achieve a certain 0:49:56.360 --> 0:49:59.960 level of interstellar technology would essentially become a super predator 0:50:00.080 --> 0:50:05.399 intent on preventing other civilizations from advancing sufficiently in their technology, 0:50:06.200 --> 0:50:08.359 you know, because it's like, well, we have achieved it. 0:50:08.880 --> 0:50:12.480 Anybody else achieving it, they could be as bad as 0:50:12.560 --> 0:50:14.719 us or worse. So we've got to prevent them. We've 0:50:14.719 --> 0:50:17.040 got to blow out their satellites, we've got to interfere 0:50:17.080 --> 0:50:20.400 with their launches. This is also a concept that is 0:50:20.480 --> 0:50:22.480 explored in the three body problem. 0:50:22.800 --> 0:50:24.640 Yeah. Yeah, Do you want to make a sound in 0:50:24.680 --> 0:50:26.719 a dark forest if you don't know what else is 0:50:26.719 --> 0:50:29.600 out there? And the idea that there's sort of a 0:50:29.640 --> 0:50:32.680 game theory logic at work within the dark forest, where 0:50:32.719 --> 0:50:36.000 it's in anybody's interest there to destroy anything else that 0:50:36.080 --> 0:50:39.360 makes a sound. Yeah, But in this case, the general 0:50:39.480 --> 0:50:43.120 is not dissuaded. He ignores Anderson's warnings, and the satellite 0:50:43.200 --> 0:50:46.239 launches into space. Now the movie, as we've said, does 0:50:46.280 --> 0:50:48.759 not have a lot of visual excitement. But here there 0:50:48.800 --> 0:50:52.120 is some good use of downward facing blast off footage 0:50:52.760 --> 0:50:54.840 stock footage, I assume, but I don't really know what 0:50:54.960 --> 0:50:56.840 it would be from. I think that's kind of interesting. 0:50:57.120 --> 0:50:59.319 Yeah, this is not one like there are certain bits 0:50:59.360 --> 0:51:02.480 of stock footage you see a lot in movies from 0:51:02.480 --> 0:51:05.560 this period, or you feel like you've seen some repetition, 0:51:05.600 --> 0:51:08.200 and that might just be similarity between different bits of footage. 0:51:08.200 --> 0:51:10.160 But yeah, this one felt new to me. 0:51:10.480 --> 0:51:13.480 Anyway. We cut from here to a dinner party three 0:51:13.520 --> 0:51:17.000 months later, so we're told some time has passed and 0:51:17.360 --> 0:51:20.400 here there are four characters, so we have Tom Anderson. 0:51:20.440 --> 0:51:23.880 This leave Kleef and his wife Claire played by Beverly Garland, 0:51:24.239 --> 0:51:26.560 and they are hosting at their house Paul Nelson as 0:51:26.600 --> 0:51:29.720 Peter Graves and his wife Joan played by Sally Fraser. 0:51:30.800 --> 0:51:33.120 And so this is where we learn that Paul and 0:51:33.200 --> 0:51:35.799 Tom are actually good buddies. I don't know exactly how 0:51:35.840 --> 0:51:38.000 far back they go, but they've been friends for a while. 0:51:38.280 --> 0:51:41.600 Apparently they have a tendency to geek out about rocket 0:51:41.640 --> 0:51:44.120 science at the dinner table, and Joan has to beg 0:51:44.160 --> 0:51:48.279 them to stop talking about conical graduations, and there is 0:51:49.160 --> 0:51:52.080 in the scene something. There's kind of a tension because 0:51:52.120 --> 0:51:55.880 there is clearly something Tom wants to bring up with Paul, 0:51:56.440 --> 0:52:00.160 but Claire is distressed. She is like, please, do not 0:52:00.280 --> 0:52:02.480 start talking about this in front of company. They're going 0:52:02.520 --> 0:52:05.600 to think you're insane. So whatever it is, it's something 0:52:05.640 --> 0:52:07.799 he's been champing at the bit to talk about, and 0:52:07.840 --> 0:52:09.360 she does not want him to bring. 0:52:09.280 --> 0:52:11.960 Up did we see what they were eating? I can't. 0:52:12.000 --> 0:52:14.440 I don't recall how they finished eating or hadn't started 0:52:14.440 --> 0:52:15.880 eating yet, and we're just doing drinks. There are a 0:52:15.920 --> 0:52:17.080 lot of drinks in this movie. 0:52:17.120 --> 0:52:20.640 They're talking about a pie, I think because Beverly Garland 0:52:20.680 --> 0:52:23.520 makes that quip. Somebody's like, ooh, this pie is so good. 0:52:23.600 --> 0:52:27.080 Did you make it? And Beverly Garland says, oh, yeah, 0:52:27.120 --> 0:52:29.880 it's an old family recipe that my grandmother sold to 0:52:29.880 --> 0:52:33.680 the bakery. So anyway, Tom's not going to be able 0:52:33.719 --> 0:52:37.239 to resist sharing whatever it is he's not supposed to 0:52:37.280 --> 0:52:39.960 be talking about. So Tom takes Paul from the dining 0:52:40.000 --> 0:52:43.040 room into the living room and he pulls back a 0:52:43.120 --> 0:52:46.600 curtain to reveal this huge recess in the wall. Which 0:52:46.640 --> 0:52:50.320 is full of radio and stereo equipment, and then Tom 0:52:50.480 --> 0:52:53.520 tunes into some kind of signal on the dial which 0:52:53.560 --> 0:52:58.160 plays through the speakers. It is an eerie, hollow, humming sound, 0:52:58.840 --> 0:53:01.239 and Tom asks, Paul, do you have any idea what 0:53:01.320 --> 0:53:04.440 you're listening to. Paul is flippant, He's like, is it 0:53:04.480 --> 0:53:09.879 the London Philharmonic? But Tom says no, it's Venus. And 0:53:09.960 --> 0:53:12.920 so at first Paul is like, oh, okay, so you're 0:53:12.920 --> 0:53:16.200 saying we're bouncing signals off of Venus or something, or 0:53:16.239 --> 0:53:22.680 maybe it's radiating impulses, geomagnetically or something. And Tom says, no, no, no, 0:53:22.840 --> 0:53:25.640 I don't mean the static. Can't you hear it the 0:53:25.719 --> 0:53:29.640 other thing? Listen to the voice. Listen to the voice, Paul. 0:53:30.000 --> 0:53:33.719 But Paul does not initially hear anything, and we don't 0:53:33.760 --> 0:53:35.840 hear it. To be clear, we don't hear an explicit 0:53:35.920 --> 0:53:37.480 voice either. We just hear the humming. 0:53:38.000 --> 0:53:40.680 Yeah, it's I guess it's to leave a little room 0:53:40.719 --> 0:53:43.080 open for the possibility early in the picture that he 0:53:43.280 --> 0:53:47.560 isn't hearing anybody that this is some unhinged behavior here 0:53:47.640 --> 0:53:51.120 or hallucination or something. Yes, but it also I have 0:53:51.160 --> 0:53:55.319 to it's also kind of similar to say, anytime a 0:53:55.400 --> 0:53:58.320 character has a conversation with a Wookie or a droid 0:53:58.320 --> 0:54:00.279 in the Star Wars universe, you know where it's like, 0:54:01.400 --> 0:54:03.640 we don't understand what's being said, that there's some sort 0:54:03.680 --> 0:54:04.960 of conversation going on here. 0:54:05.239 --> 0:54:08.320 Yeah where. When these conversations happen later in the movie, 0:54:08.400 --> 0:54:10.880 Tom will often have to like repeat back what he 0:54:10.960 --> 0:54:13.080 has just heard from the other side. So it's those 0:54:13.080 --> 0:54:18.160 classic Wookie conversations. Yeah, what do you mean the hyperdrives broken? Yeah. Anyway, 0:54:18.200 --> 0:54:20.800 while they're listening to the humming trying to hear the voice, 0:54:21.040 --> 0:54:24.200 the phone rings. It's for Paul. It's the Rocket Lab. 0:54:24.520 --> 0:54:27.920 They inform him that just this very moment, the satellite 0:54:28.000 --> 0:54:30.960 that they put into orbit three months ago has disappeared. 0:54:31.360 --> 0:54:34.120 It darted out of its orbit and off into space. 0:54:34.719 --> 0:54:37.080 So Paul and Joan have to leave Claire and Tom's 0:54:37.120 --> 0:54:39.719 house in a hurry so Paul can deal with the satellite. 0:54:39.960 --> 0:54:42.200 And as they're going out and getting into the car 0:54:42.280 --> 0:54:44.680 to drive away, Joan says, I've always thought Tom was 0:54:44.719 --> 0:54:48.880 a little off tonight, he went too far. So anyway, 0:54:48.920 --> 0:54:51.600 they drive to the installation, but by the time they 0:54:51.680 --> 0:54:55.000 get there, the satellite is already back wherever it went. 0:54:55.080 --> 0:54:57.880 That was pretty quick, and Paul decides they're going to 0:54:57.920 --> 0:55:00.960 have to bring the satellite down for an inspection. Is 0:55:01.000 --> 0:55:03.600 that a thing in reality? It satellites? I don't know 0:55:03.640 --> 0:55:04.000 about that. 0:55:04.640 --> 0:55:06.600 Yeah, yeah, this is again it's a moment where we 0:55:06.680 --> 0:55:08.759 have to remind ourselves that the thing that they are 0:55:08.800 --> 0:55:14.120 depicting is near future science fiction and reality went a 0:55:14.120 --> 0:55:15.400 slightly different way with all of this. 0:55:15.760 --> 0:55:19.680 Yeah. So, meanwhile, back at Tom and Claire's house, Claire 0:55:19.800 --> 0:55:23.000 is walking around fiddling with things nervously. She's in a 0:55:23.000 --> 0:55:27.600 state of anxiety. She is obviously unhappy that Tom started 0:55:27.640 --> 0:55:30.520 talking about the messages from Venus, even though he promised 0:55:30.560 --> 0:55:34.080 her that he wouldn't. So Tom goes to his covert 0:55:34.200 --> 0:55:38.240 Venus radio and he tunes in, but then, to our shock, 0:55:38.320 --> 0:55:41.680 he begins speaking to someone. Now, once again, we don't 0:55:41.680 --> 0:55:43.239 hear a voice on the other side. We just hear 0:55:43.280 --> 0:55:46.239 the spooky humming. It kind of oscillates at different frequencies. 0:55:46.480 --> 0:55:49.239 But Tom hears something because he responds to what the 0:55:49.280 --> 0:55:55.239 presence says. He says, this is Anderson Acknowledge. Where are you? Yes, yes, 0:55:55.600 --> 0:55:58.600 it's true. I am your only friend. Nobody else even 0:55:58.680 --> 0:56:01.640 knows you exist, but they will, and it will be 0:56:01.680 --> 0:56:05.239 the greatest day in the history of mankind. Now, at 0:56:05.280 --> 0:56:07.840 some point in this conversation, Beverly Garland comes out of 0:56:07.840 --> 0:56:10.840 the bedroom in like a big puffy nightgown with a caller. 0:56:10.880 --> 0:56:14.279 I love these old movie nightgowns. So she asked Tom 0:56:14.320 --> 0:56:16.600 to come to bed, but he is not ready. He says, 0:56:16.680 --> 0:56:19.880 he's here, darling. He drew the satellite to his world, 0:56:19.920 --> 0:56:24.120 to Venus, and now he's back. Within an hour, he's 0:56:24.200 --> 0:56:27.040 in the circling laboratory, just waiting to come down to 0:56:27.120 --> 0:56:31.680 us to save us. And Claire is obviously disturbed. She 0:56:31.920 --> 0:56:34.760 thinks he's going mad. But Tom is just a big 0:56:34.800 --> 0:56:38.040 ball of excitement. He says he's finally proven right. All 0:56:38.080 --> 0:56:40.719 of his theories about alien observers from other planets in 0:56:40.760 --> 0:56:42.960 the Solar System, they were all correct. He was right 0:56:43.000 --> 0:56:46.920 all along. But while in the past he didn't know 0:56:47.040 --> 0:56:50.319 if their intentions would be good or evil, he now 0:56:50.360 --> 0:56:53.719 knows that they're good. That this intelligence from Venus has 0:56:53.760 --> 0:56:57.120 returned with the goal of helping our planet to ascend 0:56:57.320 --> 0:57:00.600 and thrive. So later Tom falls asleep on the couch 0:57:00.640 --> 0:57:03.239 by his radio kit and Claire comes out and lays 0:57:03.239 --> 0:57:06.120 a blanket over him, and it's a tender moment because 0:57:06.280 --> 0:57:10.000 she is frightened and bewildered by his behavior, but she 0:57:10.080 --> 0:57:12.120 still loves him and she wants him to be Well. 0:57:12.640 --> 0:57:13.960 Yeah, it is a nice little scene. 0:57:14.080 --> 0:57:16.160 So the next day there's a scene where the scientists 0:57:16.200 --> 0:57:19.480 are bringing down the satellite and it is not responding 0:57:19.520 --> 0:57:21.760 to their remote controls the way it's supposed to. It 0:57:21.800 --> 0:57:25.920 eventually crashes somewhere near the base. In some ways, I 0:57:25.960 --> 0:57:28.160 think this is supposed to be one of the quote 0:57:28.200 --> 0:57:31.400 exciting scenes. It's creating a type of suspense what's going 0:57:31.440 --> 0:57:33.920 to happen to the satellite? I don't think it works 0:57:33.920 --> 0:57:36.680 super well. I think they could have trimmed stuff. 0:57:36.400 --> 0:57:39.520 Like this, not that there's a lot of space to trim. 0:57:40.080 --> 0:57:42.440 Yeah, well this could have gone in the pile with 0:57:42.480 --> 0:57:44.640 all of the parking scenes and the driving scene, yeah 0:57:44.640 --> 0:57:45.360 that stuff. 0:57:45.400 --> 0:57:47.560 Then you risk cutting it down to like a nice, 0:57:47.640 --> 0:57:48.640 lean forty minutes. 0:57:49.280 --> 0:57:51.280 Well yeah, but as we were saying earlier, I mean 0:57:51.600 --> 0:57:54.000 I think this movie could work as a good, like 0:57:54.080 --> 0:57:57.280 forty five minute you know, philosophical sci fi story. 0:57:57.440 --> 0:58:00.520 Yeah, like basically like an Outer Limits episode. Yea, yeah, yeah. 0:58:01.800 --> 0:58:04.760 So Tom learns from his radio that the presence from 0:58:04.840 --> 0:58:07.640 Venus survived the crash and is now hiding in the 0:58:07.680 --> 0:58:11.000 mountains about ten miles south of the installation. And here 0:58:11.040 --> 0:58:13.880 we get our very first glimpse of the alien, moving 0:58:13.960 --> 0:58:17.120 slowly through the thick brush of a forest. We do 0:58:17.200 --> 0:58:19.920 not see its whole body. We see the conical tip 0:58:20.000 --> 0:58:23.480 of its head with some little antennae poking out, and 0:58:23.520 --> 0:58:26.560 then it stops and reaches up and waves these clawed 0:58:26.600 --> 0:58:29.080 hands around. This part is already pretty funny. 0:58:29.360 --> 0:58:32.800 Yeah, it's probably a bad sign when you're doing the 0:58:32.880 --> 0:58:35.000 right thing, you're not showing your full monster. And it's 0:58:35.040 --> 0:58:39.280 already ridiculous because we've talked about other films where at 0:58:39.400 --> 0:58:42.520 least the first like in Mortal Kombat, the first little 0:58:42.560 --> 0:58:45.160 glimpse you get a goro, it worked really well. Yes, 0:58:45.240 --> 0:58:48.960 it's only as you reveal more that the problems become obvious. Here, 0:58:49.200 --> 0:58:51.200 it's a little hilarious from the get go. 0:58:51.840 --> 0:58:54.800 Oh you know what, I realized the static design of 0:58:54.840 --> 0:58:57.720 the monster face and it conquered the world is basically 0:58:57.760 --> 0:59:00.800 in the same zone as the gore punched in the 0:59:00.840 --> 0:59:07.760 groin face. Yeah, yeah, okay, anyway, Next we get a 0:59:07.840 --> 0:59:12.600 montage of all machinery coming to a halt. There's some 0:59:12.800 --> 0:59:15.800 clever use of stock footage played in reverse here to 0:59:15.880 --> 0:59:20.040 achieve a stopping effect on things like So, the idea 0:59:20.080 --> 0:59:23.000 is the alien has managed to shut off every machine 0:59:23.040 --> 0:59:26.760 in the area. I think I saw some plot summary 0:59:26.800 --> 0:59:28.880 that said it managed to stop every machine in the 0:59:28.880 --> 0:59:31.520 whole world. I don't recall if they actually say that 0:59:31.560 --> 0:59:33.120 in the movie. I don't think they do well. 0:59:33.160 --> 0:59:35.880 The title of the movie is it conquered the world, 0:59:35.960 --> 0:59:39.240 And there's maybe like some brief mention of that, but 0:59:39.400 --> 0:59:41.400 the whole film feels very regional. 0:59:41.680 --> 0:59:45.040 Yes, the action is quite local. Yeah, so I don't 0:59:45.040 --> 0:59:47.520 know whatever's going on far away, at least within this 0:59:47.640 --> 0:59:51.600 town around the military installation, all machines stop, and that's 0:59:51.640 --> 0:59:55.680 all machines of every kind, electrical gas combustion, All the 0:59:55.720 --> 0:59:58.080 cars come to a stop in the road. We see 0:59:58.120 --> 1:00:00.640 airplanes falling out of the sky, a train stops, We 1:00:00.680 --> 1:00:03.720 see I think a printing press stop printing, and it 1:00:03.760 --> 1:00:07.920 even stops just purely mechanical machines like Jones wind up 1:00:08.000 --> 1:00:09.200 watch stops working. 1:00:10.000 --> 1:00:13.400 This is like the same level of logic that you 1:00:13.520 --> 1:00:17.840 get in maximum overdrive, where whatever is controlling all the 1:00:17.880 --> 1:00:21.520 machines controls everything from like a high tech vehicle to 1:00:21.640 --> 1:00:25.920 a toaster. Yeah. Like, whatever the alien is doing, it 1:00:25.960 --> 1:00:29.320 can stop a power plant, it can stop a wristwatch, 1:00:29.560 --> 1:00:32.720 presumably like the drinking birds are no longer working in town. 1:00:33.480 --> 1:00:35.520 Yeah that's right, it stops dipping. 1:00:35.640 --> 1:00:38.520 Yeah, wind up toys are totally non functional. 1:00:38.960 --> 1:00:44.080 Yeah, that monkey is not clapping symbols anymore. So that's 1:00:44.080 --> 1:00:46.200 phase one of the takeover plan. Turn off all the 1:00:46.240 --> 1:00:50.600 machines begin phase two. Tom is on the radio with 1:00:50.640 --> 1:00:52.840 an alien. Now why does this radio still work? Because 1:00:52.880 --> 1:00:57.520 the alien can specifically target certain machines to still function. 1:00:57.680 --> 1:01:01.240 They're the machines that belong to the al allies, and 1:01:01.360 --> 1:01:03.920 right now I think Tom is the only ally and 1:01:04.000 --> 1:01:06.520 Tom and Claire's household, so their stuff still works. 1:01:06.600 --> 1:01:10.560 Which again speaks to this being a very local invasion. Yes, 1:01:10.680 --> 1:01:15.520 maybe like maybe limited to a single California county. Yes, 1:01:15.880 --> 1:01:17.680 maybe not even municipal regions yet. 1:01:19.560 --> 1:01:21.680 So Tom's on the radio with the alien and he's 1:01:21.720 --> 1:01:25.560 reading off a list that he has created of control personnel. 1:01:26.000 --> 1:01:28.640 This includes the mayor of the town, the chief of police, 1:01:28.720 --> 1:01:31.080 the commander of the Air Force base, and also his 1:01:31.160 --> 1:01:36.000 friend Paul Nelson. They say that these four men, along 1:01:36.000 --> 1:01:38.840 with their wives, will be the targets of the eight 1:01:39.080 --> 1:01:43.720 control devices that the Presence has brought with them from Venus, 1:01:44.280 --> 1:01:46.720 and it will take time on the on the scale 1:01:46.720 --> 1:01:49.800 of weeks to create more control devices. So this is 1:01:49.800 --> 1:01:54.280 all they've got right now. And then in a hilarious cutaway, 1:01:54.320 --> 1:01:57.800 we see these little minoc type creatures, nasty little winged 1:01:58.280 --> 1:02:02.400 beasts scooting out from under the alien's costume and flying away. 1:02:02.760 --> 1:02:05.480 Now Here we begin a number of scenes that are 1:02:05.640 --> 1:02:09.120 the mind control attacks. So these flying creatures, they spread 1:02:09.120 --> 1:02:11.880 out all over the place, They swoop down on their targets, 1:02:12.000 --> 1:02:14.680 latch briefly onto the back of the neck. And then 1:02:14.800 --> 1:02:17.040 once they do and it only takes a few seconds, 1:02:17.440 --> 1:02:20.640 the target is fully obedient to the will of the 1:02:20.640 --> 1:02:25.000 benefactor from Venus. I think, in a seemingly psychic sense, 1:02:25.080 --> 1:02:28.160 like they automatically into it their orders. They don't have 1:02:28.200 --> 1:02:30.520 to check in via radio like Tom does. 1:02:31.360 --> 1:02:34.560 I guess there are a few moments in the in 1:02:34.600 --> 1:02:36.560 the plot though, where you're like, well, maybe it's not 1:02:37.080 --> 1:02:40.960 instant communication. Maybe they get like an update every few hours. 1:02:40.960 --> 1:02:43.040 I don't know, yeah, but I'm going to try not 1:02:43.120 --> 1:02:48.160 to be too pedantic about it. Overall, pretty cool little 1:02:48.160 --> 1:02:50.040 mind control concept, I guess, yes. 1:02:50.200 --> 1:02:52.520 And then once they bite you and mind control you, 1:02:52.680 --> 1:02:55.760 they just fall off and die immediately. They say, it's 1:02:55.800 --> 1:02:56.600 like a bee sting. 1:02:57.440 --> 1:02:59.680 Yeah, kind of like the face hugger you know. 1:03:00.360 --> 1:03:12.680 Yes, yeah. Now we learn that in this early phase 1:03:12.720 --> 1:03:15.920 of the plan, they're targeting these key leadership figures in 1:03:15.960 --> 1:03:19.000 the immediate vicinity of the crash site set where the 1:03:19.040 --> 1:03:23.720 satellite came down. But ultimately we learn that the way 1:03:23.840 --> 1:03:27.840 the being from Venus intends to help or save humanity 1:03:28.480 --> 1:03:31.920 is by subjecting all of us to a mind altering 1:03:32.000 --> 1:03:37.040 procedure which will leave us with no emotions, only logic, 1:03:37.600 --> 1:03:41.000 and Tom explains that the rationale here emotions are the 1:03:41.040 --> 1:03:46.320 source of everything bad in human society, all war, hate, stupidity, 1:03:46.520 --> 1:03:52.120 unnecessary strife. This purging of emotions will purge human kind 1:03:52.200 --> 1:03:55.280 of these evils and elevate us to a state of 1:03:55.400 --> 1:04:00.520 utopian rationality. Now, ultimately this plan comes under some serious 1:04:00.600 --> 1:04:04.880 interrogation by various characters in later scenes. But I first 1:04:04.920 --> 1:04:09.160 wanted to ask, so this is Tom's understanding of the 1:04:09.200 --> 1:04:12.120 alien's plan. We hear it explained in Tom's words, what 1:04:12.240 --> 1:04:14.800 the alien is going to do purge us of emotions 1:04:15.160 --> 1:04:17.960 and elevate us to you know, to a better existence. 1:04:18.440 --> 1:04:21.520 But I had a serious question do we ever find 1:04:21.560 --> 1:04:25.720 out if the alien itself actually believes this? Like, from 1:04:25.720 --> 1:04:29.880 the alien's perspective, is it really trying to help us 1:04:29.920 --> 1:04:33.040 at least what it would consider help, Or in the 1:04:33.120 --> 1:04:36.280 alien's own mind, is this just a mission of conquest 1:04:36.400 --> 1:04:40.560 and exploitation and the emotion purging utopia story is a 1:04:40.560 --> 1:04:42.960 way of manipulating Tom into helping it. 1:04:43.440 --> 1:04:45.680 Yeah, I don't know. There are various ways to sort 1:04:45.680 --> 1:04:50.040 of interpret this because on one level, I was thinking 1:04:50.040 --> 1:04:55.840 earlier about the earlier satellites that had failed gone missing, 1:04:55.920 --> 1:04:59.680 and Anderson's theory that this was due to alien interference. 1:05:01.200 --> 1:05:04.280 Perhaps those were different aliens, you know, the idea that 1:05:04.280 --> 1:05:07.720 there are different intelligence is in the Solar System that 1:05:07.920 --> 1:05:11.000 don't want Earth to advance too much. But then you 1:05:11.080 --> 1:05:15.560 have a few bad players on Venus who realize, actually 1:05:15.600 --> 1:05:19.200 we can we can make this work for us. We 1:05:19.240 --> 1:05:22.160 need to get off Venus. We would love to manipulate 1:05:22.240 --> 1:05:26.240 these people and make them work for us, conquering their world. 1:05:26.120 --> 1:05:29.560 Because later we do learn that these creatures from Venus, 1:05:30.080 --> 1:05:35.360 they have severe limitations in their own environment, Like we 1:05:35.720 --> 1:05:38.160 sort of get the idea that Venus is lacking in 1:05:38.240 --> 1:05:41.280 the resources they need to achieve their ultimate goals. 1:05:41.920 --> 1:05:46.040 Yeah, and it's also later discussed that the Venusians themselves 1:05:46.240 --> 1:05:50.439 lack emotion. Ye, and but but that at the same 1:05:50.480 --> 1:05:53.920 time we've seen this creature's face. Its face is clearly evil, 1:05:54.760 --> 1:05:58.560 it's full of emotion. So I don't know, the message 1:05:58.560 --> 1:06:01.040 is a little skewed here, Like is it evil and 1:06:01.080 --> 1:06:06.000 I'm looking to manipulate our desire for betterment and Anderson's desire 1:06:06.160 --> 1:06:10.000 for human advancement? Or is this all just perfectly logical 1:06:10.040 --> 1:06:13.320 to it? Like of course I'm going to you know, 1:06:13.360 --> 1:06:16.680 take over key leaders and overthrow the government because these 1:06:16.680 --> 1:06:18.840 are all necessary logical steps that need to take place 1:06:18.880 --> 1:06:22.800 in order to ring about this new utopia. We don't 1:06:22.840 --> 1:06:24.600 really know. It's kind of the movie seems to have 1:06:24.640 --> 1:06:25.240 it both ways. 1:06:25.560 --> 1:06:27.919 Yeah. Yeah, So I've got my own thoughts about the 1:06:28.000 --> 1:06:30.960 sort of emotion logic divide here that we can get 1:06:30.960 --> 1:06:32.680 into after we talk about some of the scenes where 1:06:32.720 --> 1:06:35.600 they discuss this, but before before we get to that, 1:06:36.800 --> 1:06:38.600 in the middle of the movie, there are a lot 1:06:38.600 --> 1:06:41.360 of scenes of like Paul riding around on a bicycle 1:06:41.520 --> 1:06:44.120 to different locations trying to figure out what's going on. 1:06:44.600 --> 1:06:47.600 Paul sort of slowly gets wise to the fact that 1:06:47.720 --> 1:06:51.080 something is really wrong. But I had a question. If 1:06:51.080 --> 1:06:54.320 a wind up watch stops working, why would a bicycle work? 1:06:56.840 --> 1:07:01.480 Yeah, yeah, exactly because it's It's likewise the same question 1:07:01.520 --> 1:07:04.360 with maximum overdrive. Did the bicycles take off? And if 1:07:04.360 --> 1:07:07.240 they didn't, why not? Why is the bicycle immune to 1:07:07.360 --> 1:07:08.720 being maximum overdrived? 1:07:09.560 --> 1:07:10.040 Yeah? 1:07:10.200 --> 1:07:13.240 Or maximum overdriven if you will. I'm not sure which 1:07:13.320 --> 1:07:14.120 term is preferred. 1:07:14.360 --> 1:07:17.120 Yeah, I don't know the answer to that. But anyway, 1:07:17.200 --> 1:07:19.480 so in this middle, I'd say a big part of 1:07:19.480 --> 1:07:25.000 the middle of the movie is characters such as Tom's 1:07:25.000 --> 1:07:29.720 wife Claire and Paul becoming convinced that Tom is not 1:07:29.920 --> 1:07:33.160 hallucinating and that the plans of the benefactor from Venus 1:07:33.240 --> 1:07:36.919 are real. And so this leads to scenes where these 1:07:37.000 --> 1:07:39.800 characters are trying to talk since into Tom. 1:07:40.080 --> 1:07:43.200 And these scenes are really the meat of the movie. Yeah, 1:07:43.400 --> 1:07:45.080 And I say that in a good way because they're 1:07:45.080 --> 1:07:46.480 generally entertaining scenes. 1:07:46.800 --> 1:07:47.080 Yeah. 1:07:47.120 --> 1:07:49.640 If they weren't, the entire film would be a watch. 1:07:50.120 --> 1:07:54.120 Yeah. So there's one scene between Tom and Claire that's 1:07:54.440 --> 1:07:58.120 Leevancleeve from Beverly Garland, and he's trying to sell her 1:07:58.200 --> 1:08:00.760 on the benefits of being part of the aliens plan 1:08:00.880 --> 1:08:03.960 and purging all emotion. But she's like, if we have 1:08:04.080 --> 1:08:07.360 no emotion, will we won't we have no love for 1:08:07.400 --> 1:08:11.680 one another? And Tom is he's not dissuaded, but it 1:08:11.720 --> 1:08:13.800 seems like he doesn't really have a very good answer 1:08:13.840 --> 1:08:16.519 for this. He says something like, well, even if there 1:08:16.520 --> 1:08:20.400 are no emotions, I'll still need you. But Claire presses 1:08:20.479 --> 1:08:22.800 him on this. She's like, okay, but if you need 1:08:22.920 --> 1:08:25.760 me but you don't love me, what does that mean? Like, 1:08:26.400 --> 1:08:29.640 so would I just basically work for you? And it 1:08:29.680 --> 1:08:32.080 seems that this kind of gets through. Tom doesn't really 1:08:32.120 --> 1:08:34.160 have a good answer, but he just kind of like 1:08:34.320 --> 1:08:36.400 is like, well, I can't think about that right now. 1:08:36.800 --> 1:08:37.320 Yeah. 1:08:37.360 --> 1:08:40.000 Somewhere also in here, we've got the I've Got a 1:08:40.040 --> 1:08:43.400 Present for you scene, which is great but also a 1:08:43.560 --> 1:08:45.920 huge WTF scene. 1:08:45.840 --> 1:08:49.479 Yeah, because earlier we get a scene where Paul leaves 1:08:49.560 --> 1:08:51.519 Joan to go off on one of his bike rides 1:08:51.520 --> 1:08:54.439 to try and figure out the mystery, and he's like, 1:08:54.479 --> 1:08:56.479 don't you know, don't leave the window open, make sure 1:08:56.520 --> 1:08:59.040 you're inside, and like the door's open for a second, 1:08:59.080 --> 1:09:01.639 and we get and like one of the flying bat 1:09:01.680 --> 1:09:05.040 creatures swoops in and we presume that it gets her. 1:09:05.360 --> 1:09:10.360 Yes, So Paul comes home and Joan is in. She's 1:09:10.479 --> 1:09:13.840 very much in Stepford wife mode. She's like, honey, welcome home. 1:09:13.920 --> 1:09:16.639 I love you. I have a present for you. Why 1:09:16.680 --> 1:09:18.720 don't you sit down right there and I'll show you, 1:09:18.720 --> 1:09:20.639 you know, show you what I'm holding behind my back. 1:09:21.520 --> 1:09:23.200 And of course, what do you know. It's a mind 1:09:23.240 --> 1:09:27.880 control bat. Beautiful, thank you, thank you, Happy birthday. She 1:09:28.080 --> 1:09:31.560 releases it and she's while it's attacking Paul. She's like, 1:09:31.600 --> 1:09:33.320 I'm gonna go out for a walk. I'll be back 1:09:33.360 --> 1:09:36.400 when you're feeling better. And so she goes out for 1:09:36.439 --> 1:09:39.240 a walk, but Paul bests the mind control bat. He 1:09:39.360 --> 1:09:40.839 kills it with a fire poker. 1:09:41.680 --> 1:09:44.600 And I rather like the scene where he kills it 1:09:44.600 --> 1:09:46.760 with the fire poker. It had some some oomph to it. 1:09:47.080 --> 1:09:50.599 Yeah, yeah, it's good. And then when she comes back, 1:09:50.680 --> 1:09:54.160 she thinks he has been turned. So these the people 1:09:54.160 --> 1:09:56.519 who have been turned by the mind control devices are 1:09:56.520 --> 1:10:00.719 not like omnipotent, like they don't fully understand and everything. 1:10:01.560 --> 1:10:03.960 So I guess that comes back somewhat of my guess 1:10:04.000 --> 1:10:07.280 about them being sort of psychic. She doesn't know he 1:10:07.360 --> 1:10:10.439 hasn't been turned. He's faking it, and he's like, will 1:10:10.439 --> 1:10:12.439 we ever go back to how we were? And she 1:10:12.560 --> 1:10:17.400 says no, the change is irreversible, and then Paul shoots 1:10:17.400 --> 1:10:22.080 her yes, what yes, Like what if she was wrong 1:10:22.120 --> 1:10:23.760 about the fact that they couldn't go back? 1:10:24.200 --> 1:10:27.479 Yeah? Yeah, what if there was some sort of cure? 1:10:27.760 --> 1:10:31.000 So many questions here, So yeah, this is like really shocking. 1:10:31.960 --> 1:10:33.760 I mean, I think part of it is most of 1:10:33.840 --> 1:10:36.120 us at this point we've seen enough vampire and zombie 1:10:36.160 --> 1:10:39.960 films to be very well acquainted with the My beloved 1:10:40.040 --> 1:10:41.800 is no longer my beloved. They're a monster now I'm 1:10:41.840 --> 1:10:43.360 going to have to kill them, seeing you know, yeah, 1:10:43.800 --> 1:10:47.520 he usually comes with a great deal of emotional anguish, 1:10:47.560 --> 1:10:52.200 and sometimes, you know, it's it's the individual facing this 1:10:52.320 --> 1:10:55.639 choice can't do it, you know, like their emotions are 1:10:55.640 --> 1:10:58.320 too strong. They're like, I know you're a zombie now, 1:10:58.400 --> 1:11:00.400 but I can't kill you. I'm gonna have to lock 1:11:00.439 --> 1:11:01.519 you in the basement instead. 1:11:01.560 --> 1:11:03.600 That sort of thing, And most of the time in 1:11:03.640 --> 1:11:07.240 those scenes there's like a lot of also just esthetic 1:11:07.320 --> 1:11:09.760 work being done to fully convince you like it's not 1:11:09.960 --> 1:11:12.479 the person anymore. They are not in there. It's a 1:11:12.520 --> 1:11:15.439 different it's just their body being controlled by a demonic 1:11:15.600 --> 1:11:16.080 entity or. 1:11:16.120 --> 1:11:17.960 So, yeah, they wanted. They have to drive home a 1:11:18.040 --> 1:11:20.960 very black and white scenario, while also driving home that 1:11:21.000 --> 1:11:23.840 this is a terrible choice it is having to be made. Yes, 1:11:24.080 --> 1:11:26.679 But Paul does not hesitate. He just shoots her down 1:11:26.720 --> 1:11:29.839 in cold blood, then presumably has a smoke and finishes 1:11:29.840 --> 1:11:32.519 reading the newspaper. I don't know the Yeah, there's no 1:11:32.720 --> 1:11:36.120 exploration of the parameters here, no consideration of how much 1:11:36.120 --> 1:11:39.400 of her is truly in there anymore. And it's even 1:11:39.439 --> 1:11:41.920 weirder when you drag in the whole sort of like 1:11:42.000 --> 1:11:45.640 cold War anxiety aspects of this film, because it's kind 1:11:45.680 --> 1:11:47.360 of like, no, sir, I found out my wife was 1:11:47.400 --> 1:11:49.559 a secret Communist, and I did what any red blooded 1:11:49.560 --> 1:11:54.320 American would do, and it just comes off like darn. 1:11:54.439 --> 1:11:58.720 But Paul is a cold guy. Again. This is our 1:11:58.800 --> 1:12:03.040 champion of emotion in the film, and he shows very 1:12:03.080 --> 1:12:05.679 little emotion in making this fatal choice. 1:12:06.120 --> 1:12:08.200 Yeah, that's right. So that is a real tension and 1:12:08.280 --> 1:12:12.360 how these themes are realized within the movie because of 1:12:12.400 --> 1:12:16.040 how cold Paul is. But so later we get these 1:12:16.040 --> 1:12:20.640 scenes where Tom and Paul are themselves arguing about the 1:12:21.360 --> 1:12:25.879 plans of the benefactor from Venus. Paul is convinced basically 1:12:25.960 --> 1:12:27.920 of what's going on. He goes to talk to Tom 1:12:28.000 --> 1:12:30.080 about the merits of the plan. I think there are various. 1:12:30.479 --> 1:12:32.679 They're planning to kill each other also in these scenes, 1:12:32.720 --> 1:12:36.680 because Tom has received orders from the alien that he 1:12:36.720 --> 1:12:39.720 has to kill Paul. I think Paul has plans of 1:12:39.760 --> 1:12:42.600 his own. But they're arguing it out, and so we 1:12:42.640 --> 1:12:46.240 get some speeches. One thing is that Tom says, you know, 1:12:46.360 --> 1:12:48.680 first of all, he tries to convince Paul to join him. 1:12:48.760 --> 1:12:51.160 He's like, he wants you on his side, next to me. 1:12:51.320 --> 1:12:54.240 He wants you so like, you know, come be, Come 1:12:54.240 --> 1:12:58.639 be the lieutenant of the Venus invasion plan. And Paul says, 1:12:58.720 --> 1:13:01.240 you want me to condone this reign of terror, to 1:13:01.280 --> 1:13:04.559 swear allegiance to this monstrous king of yours, to kill 1:13:04.560 --> 1:13:07.839 my own soul and all within reach. Well I won't, Anderson, 1:13:08.160 --> 1:13:10.479 I'll fight it till the last of breath in my body, 1:13:10.680 --> 1:13:12.840 and I'll fight you too, because you're part of it, 1:13:13.040 --> 1:13:15.920 the worst part, because you belong to a living race, 1:13:16.040 --> 1:13:19.320 not a dying one. This is your land, your world. 1:13:19.680 --> 1:13:22.920 Your hands are human, but your mind is enemy. You're 1:13:22.960 --> 1:13:26.240 a trader, Anderson, the greatest trader of all time. And 1:13:26.280 --> 1:13:29.600 you know why, because you're not betraying part of mankind, 1:13:29.840 --> 1:13:33.479 you're betraying all of it. That's a Peter Grave speech. 1:13:33.800 --> 1:13:35.800 That's pretty great. I mean, and you know, I have 1:13:35.840 --> 1:13:37.880 to say, I'm glad they're doing this in person, because 1:13:37.880 --> 1:13:40.400 if this film we're set today, this whole conversation would 1:13:40.439 --> 1:13:43.120 take place on Facebook and it would just be super awful, 1:13:44.720 --> 1:13:46.519 and half of it would be in names. Half of 1:13:46.560 --> 1:13:47.880 it would be memes. You know. 1:13:48.640 --> 1:13:50.320 Yeah, it's a comment. It's got a lot of little 1:13:50.520 --> 1:13:54.519 the mad Face emoji reactions. Yeah. So he makes the 1:13:54.560 --> 1:13:56.640 case that he's being a trader. But they also have 1:13:56.680 --> 1:14:02.559 a conversation where Paul explains why the why he thinks 1:14:02.640 --> 1:14:06.040 that the emotion purging plan won't work. He's like, I 1:14:06.040 --> 1:14:09.760 think Earth is actually going to defeat these, you know, 1:14:09.880 --> 1:14:15.559 these supposedly purely logical mind controlled beings from Venus, because 1:14:15.600 --> 1:14:20.680 he says, for example, humans will feel emotional solidarity for 1:14:20.800 --> 1:14:25.000 one another, and their emotions will cause them to cooperate 1:14:25.080 --> 1:14:30.840 together and to sacrifice their own personal interests in you know, 1:14:30.920 --> 1:14:33.880 in the interest of better protecting humanity as a whole. 1:14:34.120 --> 1:14:38.720 So they can coordinate and cooperate and make sacrifices in 1:14:38.760 --> 1:14:44.120 a way that these purely logical, rational, individualistic beings controlled 1:14:44.160 --> 1:14:47.599 by the aliens will not. Now I sort of get 1:14:47.600 --> 1:14:49.320 what they're going for there. I don't know if that's 1:14:49.360 --> 1:14:51.679 exactly the way I would frame it, but I think 1:14:51.720 --> 1:14:55.200 it raises a lot of interesting questions. I think the 1:14:55.240 --> 1:14:58.840 way I would think about it more is that the 1:14:58.840 --> 1:15:02.479 way Tom is thinking about logic versus emotion is just 1:15:02.960 --> 1:15:06.160 a little bit miscalibrated as to the roles these things 1:15:06.200 --> 1:15:10.559 actually play in how we act. Like, logic is a 1:15:10.600 --> 1:15:14.160 good way of formulating plans of action, right, It's better 1:15:14.200 --> 1:15:17.559 to think logically about what to do than to just 1:15:17.640 --> 1:15:19.880 act emotionally to try to figure out what you should do. 1:15:20.320 --> 1:15:24.280 But emotions generate all of the motivation states for action. 1:15:24.840 --> 1:15:27.680 So if you have a very logical plan about how 1:15:27.680 --> 1:15:30.840 to achieve a goal, the way you decide what your 1:15:31.040 --> 1:15:35.640 goal is is usually emotion like you have emotional motivations 1:15:36.160 --> 1:15:38.599 that tell you what you want and what you think 1:15:38.680 --> 1:15:41.080 is good, and then you have logic to help you 1:15:41.160 --> 1:15:43.120 decide best how to achieve that thing. 1:15:43.720 --> 1:15:47.400 Yeah, and of course logic can be flawed. Logic can 1:15:47.760 --> 1:15:52.000 lead to incorrect answers, Like, it's interesting to think about 1:15:52.640 --> 1:15:55.680 Anderson here, like he has been he has followed a 1:15:55.720 --> 1:15:59.400 path that is both logical and emotional to reach this 1:15:59.520 --> 1:16:01.920 point where he risks dooming the planet. You know, yes, 1:16:02.720 --> 1:16:04.639 so yeah, it is hard to sort of tease tease 1:16:04.680 --> 1:16:06.599 these apart. You know, you get into the whole vulcan 1:16:06.680 --> 1:16:10.439 territory right of trying to figure out what what a 1:16:10.560 --> 1:16:12.839 what a people would be like if they purge themselves 1:16:12.880 --> 1:16:17.080 of emotion and and followed pure logic. You know, what 1:16:17.080 --> 1:16:19.400 what would that look like and what would be what 1:16:19.479 --> 1:16:21.120 kind of pitfalls would still be possible. 1:16:21.520 --> 1:16:24.120 But there's a great twist here because in one of 1:16:24.120 --> 1:16:26.559 these scenes where Paul comes over and he's arguing with 1:16:26.640 --> 1:16:31.960 Tom about what they should do, Claire actually sneaks out, 1:16:32.040 --> 1:16:36.240 like she she comes to hate this alien presence and 1:16:36.320 --> 1:16:38.120 she's like, you know what, I'm going to deal with 1:16:38.160 --> 1:16:42.120 this issue myself. So Beverly Garland steals Tom's rifle that 1:16:42.200 --> 1:16:44.680 he was going to use to kill Paul and then 1:16:44.800 --> 1:16:47.160 goes and gets in the car and drives away to 1:16:47.360 --> 1:16:50.960 find the alien and she at one point she I think, 1:16:51.000 --> 1:16:53.400 gets on the radio and says like I'm coming for you. 1:16:53.760 --> 1:16:54.160 Yeah. 1:16:54.439 --> 1:16:57.200 Yeah, And I love this. Like Claire, she she gets 1:16:57.200 --> 1:16:59.479 in the car, arms herself, gets in the car and 1:16:59.520 --> 1:17:02.920 goes to find the cave where the alien lives, and 1:17:02.920 --> 1:17:05.360 she's like, I'm gonna destroy it. Yeah. 1:17:05.400 --> 1:17:08.759 She's a woman of action, and Beverly Garland really brings 1:17:08.760 --> 1:17:10.439 a lot of energy to this role. Is great in 1:17:10.520 --> 1:17:13.840 this role, so like this alone is a is a 1:17:13.880 --> 1:17:16.599 breath of fresh air for movies of this time period. 1:17:16.960 --> 1:17:18.960 Yeah, and she has some great lines too. I think 1:17:19.000 --> 1:17:21.960 when she's going to kill it in the cave, she says, 1:17:22.000 --> 1:17:23.880 you think you're gonna make a slave of the world, 1:17:24.160 --> 1:17:25.960 I'll see you in hell first. 1:17:27.240 --> 1:17:28.360 Yeah, and she sells it. 1:17:28.560 --> 1:17:30.160 She also tells it that it's ugly. 1:17:30.760 --> 1:17:32.719 Yeah, it is true. 1:17:32.720 --> 1:17:33.360 It is ugly. 1:17:33.800 --> 1:17:35.360 Yeah, And I think that's one thing they were trying 1:17:35.400 --> 1:17:37.679 to sort of drive like they're trying to like hold off. 1:17:38.640 --> 1:17:40.760 This is one of the tricky things of having seen 1:17:40.760 --> 1:17:43.320 this picture so many times and or having seen that 1:17:43.360 --> 1:17:46.839 face on the poster. You know, the menace, the alien 1:17:46.880 --> 1:17:49.559 menace is ugly, and I think the film is crafted 1:17:49.840 --> 1:17:52.000 in a sense where they wanted that to be a 1:17:52.000 --> 1:17:55.760 big reveal and it you know that this should be 1:17:55.800 --> 1:17:58.519 a realization. Oh, the thing that we thought was a 1:17:58.560 --> 1:18:01.639 benefactor really as a hidiot monster. And there's something about 1:18:01.680 --> 1:18:04.920 its appearance that cluses into this even more. But you know, 1:18:05.640 --> 1:18:07.000 what can you do. You got to put a monster 1:18:07.040 --> 1:18:07.800 on the poster. 1:18:08.040 --> 1:18:12.599 That's right. So eventually Tom is convinced. He's sort of 1:18:12.680 --> 1:18:15.599 he's talked down out of cooperating with the alien, which 1:18:15.640 --> 1:18:20.120 is pretty interesting. I don't know if I would normally 1:18:20.680 --> 1:18:22.920 expect the plot to work that way in a movie 1:18:22.960 --> 1:18:27.240 like this. I would normally expect some kind of I 1:18:27.280 --> 1:18:32.439 don't know, like sight or plot twist to change Tom's allegiance. 1:18:32.479 --> 1:18:35.240 But instead he's just sort of convinced through argumentation. 1:18:35.960 --> 1:18:38.280 Yeah, and well, and I think the fact too that 1:18:39.040 --> 1:18:41.840 his wife is in peril now, like he realizes that 1:18:43.720 --> 1:18:45.960 she is in danger, right, and he has to go 1:18:46.040 --> 1:18:49.360 attempt to save her, but also rectify this problem that 1:18:49.400 --> 1:18:51.959 he is doomed that he's potentially brought to the planet 1:18:52.120 --> 1:18:52.519 that's right. 1:18:52.560 --> 1:18:54.919 So Claire has run off to fight the alien herself. 1:18:55.240 --> 1:18:57.880 Tom is on Paul's side. Now he's like, okay, we 1:18:57.920 --> 1:19:01.120 got to stop it. So paulin Tom both run off 1:19:01.120 --> 1:19:04.799 to enact various parts of the plan. Tom arms himself 1:19:04.840 --> 1:19:07.800 with like a little flamethrower of some kind, like a 1:19:07.920 --> 1:19:10.080 it's not a huge flamethrower. What do you call this thing. 1:19:10.120 --> 1:19:13.640 It's like a little tiny, sort of kettle sized flamethrower. 1:19:13.960 --> 1:19:18.280 Yeah, like some sort of like little blowtorch sized flamer device. Yeah. 1:19:18.320 --> 1:19:21.879 But I really like this division in weapons because obviously 1:19:21.920 --> 1:19:24.240 Paul will shoot anything that moves, so he needs a 1:19:24.240 --> 1:19:28.640 handgun that fits his character. But Anderson. Anderson's more of 1:19:28.680 --> 1:19:30.280 a you know, a thinker. You know. It's like he 1:19:30.280 --> 1:19:33.439 had that rifle earlier and the rifle's gone now. I 1:19:33.439 --> 1:19:36.120 don't know, it feels appropriate that he's using something a 1:19:36.120 --> 1:19:39.680 little more sciency, a little more sci fi, you know, 1:19:39.720 --> 1:19:41.200 this little flamethrower device. 1:19:41.760 --> 1:19:45.360 There is some more brutal violence in this movie, shocking violence, 1:19:45.360 --> 1:19:47.679 I would say, for a movie from fifty six, where 1:19:48.680 --> 1:19:52.840 he the mind controlled police chief that is working for 1:19:52.880 --> 1:19:55.400 the alien. He tries to stop Tom from getting to 1:19:55.439 --> 1:19:57.679 the cave and he's like shooting at Tom and Tom 1:19:57.840 --> 1:19:59.000 just burns him. 1:19:59.160 --> 1:20:02.160 Yeah yeah, yeah, flames him up. Yeah, and he runs 1:20:02.160 --> 1:20:05.360 a little bit and falls over on fire. Yeah. So yeah, 1:20:05.520 --> 1:20:06.439 but pretty harsh. 1:20:06.479 --> 1:20:08.360 But eventually they get to the cave. Oh and this 1:20:08.439 --> 1:20:13.000 intersects with a fairly consistently grown inducing subplot where some 1:20:13.280 --> 1:20:16.200 soldiers are wandering around in the woods and they're like, oh, 1:20:16.479 --> 1:20:18.280 we're hungry, where can we get food? They are not 1:20:18.479 --> 1:20:22.639 mine controlled and they're wandering around. But they eventually hear 1:20:22.840 --> 1:20:26.000 the violence and the commotion at the cave, so they 1:20:26.040 --> 1:20:28.320 go there with all their weapons, and so we end 1:20:28.360 --> 1:20:30.519 up with a bunch of soldiers going into the cave 1:20:30.720 --> 1:20:34.240 confronting the monster, and the monster attacks them. I think 1:20:34.280 --> 1:20:38.120 it kills some of them, and ultimately, in the final showdown, 1:20:38.240 --> 1:20:41.200 Tom himself has to go up against the creature that 1:20:41.280 --> 1:20:42.719 he invited from Venus. 1:20:43.360 --> 1:20:46.200 Yeah, and this is this is a pretty satisfying showdown. 1:20:46.240 --> 1:20:49.600 I mean, again, the blocking of it, what is possible 1:20:49.640 --> 1:20:54.200 with interactions between the monster and human actors aside, it 1:20:54.280 --> 1:20:56.080 plays out rather well, I think. 1:20:56.560 --> 1:20:59.599 Yeah, the broad payoff in terms of what the characters do, 1:21:00.400 --> 1:21:03.320 at least maybe as described on paper works pretty well. 1:21:03.360 --> 1:21:07.479 So Paul, sorry, Tom does run up and he like 1:21:07.600 --> 1:21:10.800 burns one of the alien's eyes with the blowtorch. 1:21:11.000 --> 1:21:13.280 Oh, he like just like sticks that sucker into the 1:21:13.320 --> 1:21:15.720 eye socket. Yeah, I mean it's it's great and and 1:21:16.040 --> 1:21:20.640 it's made even better because Lee van Kleef delivers like 1:21:20.680 --> 1:21:23.559 just this awesome line line that has a lot of 1:21:23.600 --> 1:21:25.800 like venom in it, you know, like he's finally seen 1:21:25.880 --> 1:21:29.200 through the to the menace here and he's like, I'm 1:21:29.200 --> 1:21:31.400 gonna like this is what you get for messing with Earth. 1:21:31.760 --> 1:21:34.720 Yeah. Yeah. But then of course he is killed in 1:21:34.800 --> 1:21:37.720 the scuffle as well, so he's laying there next to 1:21:37.760 --> 1:21:41.360 the dead overturned ice cream cone or artichoke, however you 1:21:41.360 --> 1:21:44.160 think of it. And then finally, so all of the 1:21:44.240 --> 1:21:47.519 characters except Paul are dead. Basically he's the only one 1:21:47.560 --> 1:21:50.240 left standing. And then he gives the monologue the one 1:21:50.280 --> 1:21:52.920 I delivered earlier. I'm not going to say it again, 1:21:53.360 --> 1:21:56.400 but he does explain that, referring to Tom, he learned 1:21:56.400 --> 1:21:59.400 almost too late, that man is a feeling creature. Well 1:21:59.400 --> 1:22:02.680 wait no, actually, hold on a second. I always assumed 1:22:02.880 --> 1:22:05.920 in this monologue he's talking about Tom. Do you think 1:22:05.920 --> 1:22:08.280 he could be talking about the alien from Venus or 1:22:08.320 --> 1:22:10.000 is he definitely talking about Tom. 1:22:10.200 --> 1:22:14.160 Who let's see, let's let's think about it and for himself. 1:22:14.200 --> 1:22:16.639 That men have to find their own, their own way, 1:22:16.720 --> 1:22:19.960 to make their own mistakes. There can't be any gift 1:22:20.040 --> 1:22:24.519 of perfection from outside ourselves. I think he's probably talking 1:22:25.920 --> 1:22:29.000 about Tom. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because you know, Tom is 1:22:29.560 --> 1:22:33.440 looking for that outside fix that's going to help humanity, 1:22:33.600 --> 1:22:36.479 something that will help us advance. Like we are. We're 1:22:36.520 --> 1:22:41.120 struggling to advance on our own. We need salvation to 1:22:41.160 --> 1:22:41.840 come from above. 1:22:42.200 --> 1:22:46.559 Yeah, this monologue assumes a it was a good faith 1:22:46.720 --> 1:22:49.840 desire to get perfection from the outside, and I don't 1:22:49.880 --> 1:22:52.679 know if Paul would assume that about the alien from Venus, 1:22:52.720 --> 1:22:55.640 that it was actually trying to help us. Yeah, so 1:22:55.720 --> 1:22:57.879 there is hope, but it has to come from inside, 1:22:58.000 --> 1:22:59.440 from men himself. 1:23:00.160 --> 1:23:02.200 Of course, they don't get into this. Of course, there 1:23:02.240 --> 1:23:04.559 was never a sequel or anything to this film. But 1:23:04.960 --> 1:23:07.960 you know, there are still other members of the Benefactor 1:23:08.040 --> 1:23:10.080 race on Venus. I forget what the headcount was. They 1:23:10.120 --> 1:23:11.080 said they're like nine of them. 1:23:11.080 --> 1:23:13.920 I think, yeah, it's only eight or nine or something, 1:23:13.960 --> 1:23:15.120 and this is just one of them. 1:23:15.240 --> 1:23:19.439 Yeah, there's still eight super intelligent Venusians out there who 1:23:19.479 --> 1:23:22.479 may or may not be reaching out to humans via 1:23:22.560 --> 1:23:27.280 their radar. There may be other alien players in the 1:23:27.320 --> 1:23:31.720 Solar System who have a vested interest in keeping humanity 1:23:31.800 --> 1:23:36.360 from advancing beyond a certain technological level. So I don't know. 1:23:36.360 --> 1:23:38.160 It's kind of commendable that a film like this this 1:23:38.280 --> 1:23:42.280 does ultimately introduce those kinds of concepts, you know, where 1:23:42.479 --> 1:23:45.680 you can leave the theater thinking about all of these 1:23:45.680 --> 1:23:48.600 things and wondering, well, how would this how would the 1:23:48.680 --> 1:23:50.519 characters from this film? How would the world from this 1:23:50.600 --> 1:23:52.080 film progress? Yeah? 1:23:52.320 --> 1:23:54.800 What if the benefactors from Mars come to purchase of 1:23:54.840 --> 1:23:56.880 all logic and leave us with only emotion? 1:23:57.360 --> 1:24:01.240 Oh wow, there you go. Now there's an interesting sequel 1:24:01.280 --> 1:24:04.439 idea for it Conquered the World, Like this time they 1:24:04.600 --> 1:24:09.040 promise pure emotion, pure ecstasy, they come in peace. 1:24:10.840 --> 1:24:13.519 Yeah, okay, well I think that's all I've got on 1:24:13.760 --> 1:24:15.080 it Conquered the World. 1:24:15.320 --> 1:24:18.440 All right. Well, yeah, it's a fun one. Highly recommend 1:24:18.439 --> 1:24:20.200 it to anyone who's never seen it, and if you've 1:24:20.200 --> 1:24:23.880 seen it before, watch it again. It's yeah, it's a hoot. 1:24:23.400 --> 1:24:26.640 That three K episode is of course rightfully considered one 1:24:26.680 --> 1:24:27.839 of the best as well. 1:24:27.880 --> 1:24:31.040 If I recall correctly, by the time that episode is over, 1:24:31.160 --> 1:24:34.519 they've played the ending monologue by Peter Graves at least 1:24:34.520 --> 1:24:39.599 three times, maybe four. Ye good choice. 1:24:40.200 --> 1:24:42.320 All right, we're going to go ahead and close out here, 1:24:42.560 --> 1:24:45.240 but we'd love to hear from everyone out there. Misty's 1:24:45.280 --> 1:24:47.639 if you want to write in about this one. Old 1:24:47.680 --> 1:24:52.000 school science fiction fans, Roger Corman fans write in as well, 1:24:52.720 --> 1:24:54.960 Western fans. You may have some thoughts here as well, 1:24:55.000 --> 1:24:58.479 especially if it relates to Lee van Cleef. But yeah, 1:24:58.520 --> 1:25:01.080 this was film number one hundred and seventy five for 1:25:01.160 --> 1:25:03.160 Weird House Cinema. If you want to see the full 1:25:03.160 --> 1:25:05.280 list of films we've covered over the years and sometimes 1:25:05.280 --> 1:25:07.360 get a peek ahead at what's coming up next, go 1:25:07.400 --> 1:25:09.400 to letterbox dot com. That's l E T T E 1:25:09.560 --> 1:25:12.160 R b o x D dot com. Our user name 1:25:12.240 --> 1:25:14.639 there is weird House and you can find that list. 1:25:15.080 --> 1:25:17.920 Let's see. If you're on Instagram, follow us we are 1:25:18.040 --> 1:25:20.360 st b ym podcast and that way you can keep 1:25:20.400 --> 1:25:22.200 up with everything we're doing in the Stuff to Blow 1:25:22.200 --> 1:25:23.360 Your Mind podcast space. 1:25:23.720 --> 1:25:27.400 Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway. 1:25:27.640 --> 1:25:29.360 If you would like to get in touch with us 1:25:29.360 --> 1:25:31.879 with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest 1:25:31.920 --> 1:25:34.000 a topic for the future, or just to say hello, 1:25:34.320 --> 1:25:36.960 you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow 1:25:36.960 --> 1:25:44.640 your Mind dot com. 1:25:44.760 --> 1:25:47.720 Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. 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