50's Jack Arnold Part One

IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE
(1953)
Overall: MEH

Made in between such similar sci-fi vehicles as 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still and the following year's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, It Came from Outer Space was another crucial Cold War era metaphor that in this particular case featured benevolent aliens whose only threatening actions are due to their logical distrust of the human beings whose planet they have inadvertently landed on.  Utilizing a story from prolific and renowned author Ray Bradbury and serving as the first sci-fi/horror vehicle for director Jack Arnold, the film has a solid amount of clever, false scares and some unnerving moments involving the townspeople who get coldly taken over.  The only problem is an unfortunately major one in that the story drags.  Everyone of course keeps on not believing Richard Carlson's character and even when they do, a predictable "angry villagers" type scene transpires with little happening that is of interest until then.  Arnold keeps the tone in check though and it works as a cautionary tale of mankind's "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality that was explored in many other such films throughout the decade.

 

REVENGE OF THE CREATURE
(1955)
Overall: MEH

Besides switching up the location from the Amazon to an Oceanarium in Florida, few fresh ideas come into play with Universal's Creature from the Black Lagoon sequel Revenge of the Creature.  Jack Arnold sticks around behind the lens, Nestor Paiva shows up at the beginning as the boat captain once again, Ricou Browning still plays the creature in the water, and the famous "Da da daaaaaaa" music punctuates as many Gill Man appearances as it did the first time around.  The story is less exciting though, dragging for large parts around a stock romance between John Agar and "pretty young scientist" Lori Nelson.  The Creature himself spends the entire middle of the movie chained up while tourists look at him through windows, yet once he inevitably escapes, there are a couple of heart-racing moments as he once again pursues the sole female in the cast.  The script has a number of logical problems though, namely how does the Gill Man manage to stalk people when they keep changing bodies of water and how does Nelson's character manage to hold her breath underwater long enough once she is captured by him?  Silly B-movie plot points to be sure, but the whole presentation is unarguably weaker than in its legendary predecessor.

 

THIS ISLAND EARTH
(1955)
Dir - Joseph M. Newman/Jack Arnold
Overall: GOOD

Both because of and in spite of its dated, high camp level special effects and textbook "warning to all humans" message, This Island Earth remains one of the better sci-fi monster films from its era.  Produced by Universal and based off Raymond F. Jones' novel of the same name, it was primarily directed by Joseph M. Newman until Jack Arnold was brought in to re-shoot most of the scenes that take place on the doomed planet Metaluna.  The pacing is surprisingly solid throughout and it is much to the film's benefit that a dramatic musical score is used more sparingly than usual.  With many key scenes playing out silently, they are that much more suspenseful and it is intriguing to find out what all of the human-looking-with-larger-forehead aliens are up to.  There are plenty of silly details all over the plot, the square-jawed hero is hilariously manly with a voice so deep that it sounds dubbed, and the famous alien creatures advertised on the poster are only given about four minutes of screen time, but these hardly make the movie "bad" due to how actually compelling its overall presentation is.