InvasionoftheSaucerMen

Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957)

This is one of my favorite old school sci-fi/horror flicks from the ‘50s. I don’t think that people give it nearly enough credit for being as subversive and clever as it is. But before I go any further lets talk about the story a bit.

You have a young couple that is on their way to getting married, but stop off at a make out spot before eloping. On their way back they manage to run over a little green man lurking around the road. When they try to tell the police what happened they are ignored. Though the police do respond to an adult that calls in them being a nuisance. While they are off calling the cops the friends of the little green man replace his body with that of an unfortunate man they ran across in the woods, and then frame the kids for hitting him. Sure enough the cops believe the frame up and it is up to the kids to break out of jail and grab there friends to save the planet from the Invasion of the Saucer Men!

Okay so this movie has all the common themes of one of these ‘50s flicks. You have the young kids being the heroes, the adults that don’t understand or believe them, and of course the monsters running around in rubber suits. As a simple creature feature Invasion of the Saucer Men works very well. In addition to giving you everything you expect the movie have a fast pace and keeps the audience entertained from beginning to end. But unlike many of it’s contemporaries Invasion of the Saucer Men has a subversive edge to it that makes it different. It might not seem that big of a deal to a modern audience (a theme that I point out many times when talking about older movies) but this was the 1950s. Think about the movies from that decade and you will realize that the military is almost always heroically coming in to save the day. Here not only are they incompetent comic relief, but are actively lying to the locals to prevent “panic”.

In addition to taking some really funny shots at the military the movie also goes after the audience that is watching the movie, the young drive-in crowd. One of the running jokes is that many of the kids up at the point couldn’t be bothered to stop necking long enough to fight the alien menace. Another thing that stands out to me is all the drinking that the kids are doing. Again that might not seem like a big deal now, but look at the other movies in the ‘50s and you will realize this is really different. Plus how could you not dig a movie that has a couple of it’s teenage characters have the following exchange?

Boy - “You think too much. I have a cure for that.”

Girl - “What?”

Boy – “More beer.”

The one last thing that I wanted to mention about the movie is the design of the Saucer Men. Even if you haven’t seen the movie I can almost guarantee you have seen a picture or poster with the creatures on it. They are one of the most iconic and silly looking designs from a decade full of them. If the movie had a more serious tone I would say this was a bad idea, but it doesn’t and the look of the Saucer Men is perfect.

And I guess that is the last thing that I want to say. So many fans really hate on this movie, but I think that they are missing the point. This isn’t meant to be taken seriously like The Thing from Another World, or Them. This is more of a comedy and parody of those teenage themed drive-in movies that were really popular in the ‘50s and ‘60s. And as that kind of movie I really dig it and recommend that everyone track down a copy and check it out.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer