"There's a thousand ways that the desert can kill" says Richard Carlson after witnessing what he first believed is a meteor and later discovers to be space craft from an unknown planet. That is just one of many poetic observations made in this above average classic from the golden age of science fiction movies that is made on a reasonable budget yet is rather impressive in its ideals.After jumping in shock after mistaking a Joshua tree for an alien, Carlson's wife Barbara Rush becomes alternately cynical and very aware of the presence of something creepy from beyond. The alien, with an obvious telescopic eye, is able to transfer itself into human form, and they do just that with Russell Johnson. So with aliens running around as clones of human beings, the obvious question is what are they up to? The alien in Johnson's body promises not to steal his soul or his mind, but how do you trust obvious invaders from the beyond?What makes this a step above the average science fiction film of the 1950's is the way that it remains serious without taking it so seriously. Compared to others of this genre, this is a masterpiece and up there with "War of the Worlds" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still". It isn't even marred by Rush's recurring screaming. Some questions do arise, such as how do the aliens know how to drive? But the key emotional scene is when the alien warns Carlson over seeing what they really look like because of how ugly they are. By presenting the visitors to earth as emotional and thinking beings, the writers make them relatable and remind us that perhaps we are not as reasonable as we claim and perhaps reason is something that other species excel at beyond our comprehension.

Jack Arnold directed this Ray Bradbury story that stars Richard Carlson as astronomer John Putnam, who, along with his girlfriend Ellen Fields(played by Barbara Rush) witness a meteor crash in the desert of Arizona. They go to investigate, and John discovers that it is a spaceship, not a meteor that has crashed, along with a strange-looking alien. Unfortunately, he's the only one that does, and the suspicious local sheriff(played by Charles Drake) is highly skeptical. When two local telephone pole workers(played by Joe Sawyer & Russell Johnson) are replaced by alien lookalikes, John knows that something sinister is happening, and must be stopped... Early science fiction tale is rather good, though does show its age in some ways(a bit melodramatic at times!) Overall though, entertaining and thoughtful.

First Contact from the Star Trek series explores a lot of the same issues that It Came From Outer Space Does. Of course First Contact was made presumably in this century when the optimistic Gene Roddenberry felt that man would grow up and mature a bit. As opposed to those humans in this small Arizona town who except for Richard Carlson who is an astronomer and writer believe in the old west tradition of shoot first.It Came From Outer Space is set in the paranoid Fifties and Richard Carlson who is courting Barbara Rush along with sheriff Charles Drake is on an outing with Rush when what he believes is a ship crashes to the earth and leaves a nice deep crater hole as it burrows into the ground.Carlson has his problems first authorities don't believe him, second when people start disappearing, everyone goes into panic mode. What's a thinking scientist to do. Remember it's not the scientists who were working on making First Contact that the aliens will be dealing with.These issues are explored and most carefully by author Ray Bradbury who wrote the original story on which It Came From Outer Space is based. The special effects are outmoded and the issue at times is dealt with simplistically, but the message is as strong now as it was six decades ago. I suppose it comes down to will enough of us on both sides of the First Contact be mature enough to handle it and respond appropriately.

There are two ways to watch this, in fact most any film. This is modeled after the way you 'watch' life. Is life merely a backdrop that you were brought in to 'star'? Do you make any of it happen? Is there a consciousness that narrates and can therefore transcend that narration? Most people carry on living, satisfied by complete dramatic immersion in their story as well as the films they happen to see.The ordinary way is that everything on screen is within hard walls of a single reality, everything clearly mapped. In our case, the monster from outer space is real, its powers real. Everything else in this reality of the film will seem erratic and unbelievable, this is the converse effect. It was probably made that way, but there's no reason why you should let that limit you.Another mode starts with you recognizing the film is not simply events that happen. There's a narrator present. You center yourself to where life is believable enough to be your own, in our case young lovers mulling about marriage and future happiness in the comfort of their spacious desert home, everything ideal. And you let your eye float in the direction of the narrator's world expanding beyond his story.Sure enough, there is a narrator here - the film opens with the man narrating to us about a clear future, a clear story ahead of them.He is a journalist and amateur astrologer, a man obsessed with both the 'story' and 'looking'. She is a happy-go-lucky creature dreaming of a blissful family life. The question that nags at both of them is, will he be able to settle down? Is it going to work between them?That is when he decides to give her through his telescope a glimpse of what his nightsky really is like, maybe he is unsure himself. What happens then? Fire rains down from the skies, the product of vision from (inner) space.He is the only safe witness that there's a ship and creature in the crater, obsessed with the 'reality' of his story which both military and locals wave off as 'science fiction'. The pragmatic sheriff worries, as any friend or relation would, that the girl has fallen for an unstable guy. And in spite of what she knows of him, pursuing the 'reality' of that story reveals him to be volatile and obsessive.So now there is a second self out in that desert, a second eye - you will note the monster in the early stages as a single hypnotic eye surrounded by fog.Compare to that effect the pov shot that opens the film, this is where as our guy narrates about a happy life ahead, we crest a hill to a view of the sleepy small town below, to the monster's pov that later in the film similarly crests a hill to a view of barren desert. The contrast is between settled life and the wilderness of uncharted soul.More: the creature can take on the appearance of any man, but in a way that wives and girlfriends complain to the sheriff that 'they are not the same'. They now have the sullen look of routine, as though drained from all passion. This may be the future of what is still an affectionate relationship between the two lovers.And all these replicated story-selves are kept in a mineshaft, where the protagonist discovers both him and his girl have been replicated themselves. She tries to kill him. He swaps the 'sci-fi' replicas of fantasy for the real persons, which he leads back into the light of day .This is great work, more erudite than perhaps even Ray Bradbury knew. Forget about any 'red menace' readings, the sci-fi trappings about 'making contact'. You will see here a narrator who succumbs into hallucination as he begins to tell his story about a happy life, and that sci-fi hallucination allows him to fulfill his wish of being both the independent-minded journalist and discoverer of new spaceworlds, but coming to realize this is at the cost of love.The only difference with something like Mulholland Dr. is there we have a filmmaker who is conscious about the fluid walls of reality, deliberate blurs and shifts between layers of dreams. This doesn't, which only adds to the improbable charm; they had the same anxious dreams in those times but couldn't quite put them to words.How smart seems Body Snatchers from '56 now: the shift to inner space happens during sleep.