Part 2: Invaders from Mars Cinematic Dreamscape Don't forget to read Part one of this article. Jimmy Hunt, the talented child actor who carries the show in Invaders from Mars, appeared at an earlier age in Pitfall, a moody film noir. Jimmy plays the five or six year old son of disenchanted husband Dick Powell, who is nearing middle age and can't understand why his loving wife and good job don't satisfy him. The most telling scene in Pitfall happens when little Jimmy wakes from a nightmare. Something was threatening him at his window. Jimmy's mother (Jane Wyatt, later of Father Knows Best) can't understand what could disturb a boy in such a perfect suburban situation. Dad picks up a stack of - what else - 'trashy' comics: "Now it's comic books. Where does he get this stuff?" It's only 1948 and already scapegoats are being sought for the lack of values and direction in American life that evoke an unnameable fear in both little Jimmy and his father ... there is something different about the times themselves, an uneasiness, and no one seems able to identify the cause. In Invaders from Mars David MacLean has a BIG nightmare, and once again his parents blame it on 'those trashy comic books he's been reading.'1 Think of Invaders as a 50s, post-modern version of The Wizard of Oz. in Dorothy's circa-1900 world of dull rural sameness, a dream is a chance to escape into a magical realm, that explains in strange but logical ways how the real world works - authority figures without substance, representatives of Good and Bad whose struggles ordinary people can hardly relate to. An innocent can find her way, if she is brave and virtuous, and perhaps discover truths about herself in the process. But Dorothy's Kansas world had one quality David MacLean's does not : a sense of security. David's dream is a result of the pressures of his daily life, not an escape from it. It's not a magical place Over the Rainbow, that you can enter like a Tex Avery cartoon character ('Technicolor Begins Here'). David's dream is an alternate reality, so close to his real world he doesn't even know he's left it. Like Dorothy's Oz, David's dream is populated by people he knows, but now they are sinister doppelgangers of their 'real' selves. Most of the criticism of Invaders from Mars stems from director William Cameron Menzies' decision not to identify David MacLean's adventure as a nightmare, literally from David's own point of view. With certain exceptions (1946's Dead of Night) tales that turn out to 'all be a dream,' tend to rejected outright as a cheat by adults. You might have to explain to a four-year-old that Dorothy really didn't go to a place called Oz, but adults aren't going to be fooled. David MacLean's nightmare isn't revealed until the end, after 75 minutes of ludicrous illogical characters and plot. Illogical to an adult mindset, that is. Invaders from Mars has a reputation for scaring the hell of of children because it's that rare film engineered around adolescent fears. The nightmare is not only shown from little David's point of view, it is also restricted to his frame of reference and his experiences. In Pitfall, Dick Powell's disenchantment is having an unnoticed psychological effect on his son, who perhaps worries that his father doesn't love him. In Invaders from Mars, if the pressures of 1953 are making adults paranoid, what effect are they having on the children? We know that the 'real' David MacLean is a precocious Astronomy buff who lives with his loving parents. His father might a scientist working on a secret project. David probably has a neighbor friend named Kathy Wilson (Janine Perreau 9) whose father might work at the same place David's father works. That's about all we are told regarding David's 'reality.' Everything in David's nightmare is is a distorted projection of his waking world, and not to be trusted. There are no reassuring 'winks' to the audience, no loveable Scarecrow who resembles a farmhand back home. David wishes he had an Astronomer for a friend; he seemingly also has a good idea of the woman he wants in his life as well - sexy Pat Blake (Helena Carter). There's a standard read on Invaders from Mars in most of the reference books: Fantasy stories obviously present us with crazy-mirror visions of our own real world .. we relate to fantasy because of its relevance to 'real life.2 The fantasy content clearly shows David MacLean's world to be a threatening one. He's insecure, therefore his dream parents 'aren't really his parents.' 'Those trashy comic books' have populated his dream world with flying saucers and Aliens. Authority figures are remote and disinclined to believe him. Beyond those observations, most reviewers can't fathom the rest of the film, let alone the continuity weirdnesses detailed in Part One of this article. The brilliance of Invaders from Mars is that all the 'weirdness' does make very sophisticated visual and thematic sense. It isn't convincing to an adult sensibility because a 10-year-old, David himself, is 'writing the script' and 'painting the scenery.' Invaders from Mars paints a surreal landscape of dialogue non-sequiters, plot illogic, and crazy character behavior. To an impressionable ten-year old of 1953, comic book flying saucers and aliens have a credibility equal to headlines about atom bombs, brainwashing and foreign conspiracies. 1999 critics and fans alike often cite filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch and sometimes Tim Burton as having quirky, odd qualities to their movies: situations, scenes, and entire moods where as a viewer you feel the director is in control, even if you're not quite sure of your own footing. The best discussions about their films invariably involve the weird and intangible ... some of their scenes have to be seen and felt to be shared. Invaders from Mars works in the same key, except that it played to audiences insufficiently hip to realize that a 'silly kid's film' could possibly be so serious. Taken literally, Invaders from Mars is incoherent. Taken like, say, Lewis Carrol's Alice through the Looking Glass, it's a mother lode of engrossing ideas. Breaking Down the Pulp. Titles: The martial marching music behind the titles blends with an eerie suspense theme as planets and moons drift by ... in 1953, Outer Space is Big Science, and Big Science is Military Science. The music's real theme is a Brave New Future of aggression, expanding into Outer Space. Norman Rockwell Opening: In a few brief scenes Menzies and writer Richard Blake sketch a happy family in their modest home just as succinctly as would the famous Saturday Evening Post illustrator. David and his father's 3 A.M. telescope fun is as wholesome as a fishing trip. The only odd notes are the weird green-bluish colors, and Menzies' precise use of gigantic closeups that show Mary and George MacLean as parents too perfect to be true, nurturing and sweethearted even when awakened in the middle of the night. Saucer Landing: Our first darkened view of The Hill makes it look like a flat storybook illustration. When the Saucer lands, at 4:41 A.M., David doesn't shrink in fear, he wonders out loud, "Gee whiz!" He's the first of the Cinefantastique sense-of-wonder boys, Spielberg's inspiration for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Dream-Logic Visuals. When the sun rises, we see Menzies' minimalist art direction at its most uncanny. The sets are simple one or two wall rooms. The view out David's back door shows just a tree, and an almost empty horizon. Shots alternate between wide, flattish domestic masters and intense choker closeups (usually accompanied by blasts of strange music). There is no action montage per se; only tableax and obsessive details. The huge shoulder of a policeman looms above little David, who strains to see something on the back of his neck. Discontinuity of Angles. In the earlier part of the story, The Hill is always seen from a single wide angle view. It's a dream image, the kind of oneiric repeated image that never changes. When George or Mary leave their porch and step into The Hill set, they seem to be entering a different world. The action on the hill stays limited to several obsessive angles: a closeup of a character in danger, a funnel of sinking sand forming in the Pit, and back to the ultra-wide unchanging Hill, as if It were alive and responsible. Bizarre Music: Credited composer Raoul Kraushaar, or whoever really created the jolting, schizophrenic score to Invaders, also invests The Hill and its grasping Sand Pit with a living dimension, an eerie, stomach-twisting vocal effect that seems to be an inversion of a stock 'heavenly chorus.' This collection of slippery tones is incredibly creepy, and will grab the attention of any child. It's far more disturbing than the Theremin, if only because of that instrument's overuse. 3 The chorus seems to be part of the musical score, until Sgt. Rinaldi is taken in the Sand Pit. David blurts out, "That noise!," as if hearing it for the first time. Do the Martians sing as they operate their sand-trap, or is David hearing the soundtrack of his own dream? Later, both David and Pat hear the 'music' just before they are captured. And the entire cast reacts similarly to a choral burst as the saucer prepares to lift off. The logic of David's dream fully enlists the soundtrack in its surrealism. 'Overplayed' Villainy. Because David is orchestrating the Dream Logic, his parents behave like baddies out of the comic books he reads: If this were a 'realistic' photoplay, his father's sullen demeanor and explosive anger would have Mary MacLean running to the neighbors for help. George MacLean's sinister, menacing invitation to show his wife something in the Sand Pit plays like a come-on line for Bluto in a Popeye cartoon. And after Mary too is possessed, they huddle and exchange crazed stage-whisper conspiratorial asides so villainous, even Forrest Gump would be dialing the F.B.I. When quisling Mary hugs her son at the Police Station, she raises an eyebrow and addresses the camera directly, as if saying, 'Yes, I'm possessed.' Pokerfaced Police Chief Barrows (Bert Freed) similarly seems to be confronting the camera directly, saying, 'Yeah, I'm one of 'em too. Got a problem with that?' Menzies makes the Chief's weirdness all the more apparent by shooting his signature closeup in reverse.4 The faces of these zombified humans all mirror the emotionless-but-intense facial expression of the as-yet unseen Martian Intelligence controlling them. A Kafka Collection of Characters: One thing David MacLean fully understands is his own lack of credibility and power as a child. Protected, sheltered and ignorant of anything beyond their Davy Crockett coonskin caps, most 1950s kids weren't the streetwise, DARE to Say No, hip, economy-driving consumers we know today. Nobody takes David seriously, not Mrs. Wilson, nor the gas-station attendant Jim, who instantly betrays his confidence.5 Even benevolent Police Deck Sergeant Finley (Walter Sande) isn't going to understand David's predicament. David finds himself in a psychological Hell where his pleas fall on deaf ears, a dark corner darker than that of the most luckless film noir protagonist: your parents have become unfeeling monsters, part of a vast conspiracy to conquer the Earth. Only you know about it, but nobody will even listen to you. You're just a kid. A Sex Life for David MacLean: Richard Staehling, writing an hilarious article about Teen films of the 50s,10 wrote that before James Dean, teenagers really didn't exist as a cultural concept. Invaders from Mars shows what a 1953 10 year-old really is thinking. He probably isn't getting any peeks at the first issue of Playboy, but he knows how to tell Virginia Mayo from Aunt Virginia. David's Mom comes right from the glamor-girl mold herself (incidentally, Hillary Brooke already carried a mild taint of villainy, as the television foil to Gale Storm's My Little Margie.) David's playmate Kathy Wilson is seen only in her 'zombie' state; the knowing, sneaky, creepy look of triumph in her giant closeups has a hint of the boyhood sexual distrust of girls that society still doesn't know how to acknowledge. Little girls (when I grew up in the 50's) were smarter, better behaved, and tended to be trusted and believed more than little boys. Some had actually been given facts about sex that nobody thought to tell us boys about ... when hanky-panky got started, it quite often was girl-initiated. 50s culture tightly pigeonholed proper little girl behavior, making Kathy's 'knowing' smile seem sexually precocious, dangerous. Next stop, Patty McCormick in The Bad Seed. But the big burner in David's dreamland love life is the incredibly sexy Dr. Pat Blake. She's a health nurse who wears two-tone high heels and undoubtably an intoxicating perfume. A crimson handkerchief sticks fashionably, daringly out of her designer nurse's uniform. She's as tender as David's mother, but takes him seriously - accepting him as an adult in all matters. Pat Blake doesn't leave David's side from the moment she finds him. Forget stuffy Astronomer Kelston. It's David and Pat all the way. When she's manhandled by the Martian slaves, her oh-so perfect uniform is torn at the shoulder just so. Just the way every heroine in action movies from Joanne Dru (Red River) to Virginia Mayo to Maureen O'Hara seem to have their dresses torn at the shoulder. Invaders from Mars isn't repeating this cliche, it's revealing its source as a little boy sex-thing. Naked woman aren't necessarily a part of David's psyche yet ... but he's getting there. The classic closeup of Pat resting peacefully on the Martian's glass operating table, one shoulder bared, with a diamond-like needle pulsing slowly toward the back of her neck, is a penetration image charged with concepts of sex and rape, innocence and violation. (see image top of page) Maybe the 'real' David MacLean has a crush on his school nurse, who is sweet to him. A lot of adolecent confusion, angst and guilt comes when a boy realizes that the older women to whom he's attracted are going to be 'gotten' by males other than himself. The threat of the Martians taking David's 'girl' away overrides even his anxiety about his parents' fate. That Wacky Dr. Kelston. Anyone doubting that the 'text' of Invaders comes directly from the mind of 10-year-old David MacLean should view this scene immediately. Already there has been the bizarre dialog between George and Mary where George tells her all about the 'secret' work at the Coral Bluffs plant. When she asks what it is, her husband chuckles and replies, "Honey, you know I can't talk about that." 6 Now the logic of expository dialogue breaks down completely. David's grasp on science seems pretty slim. His imagined best friend Dr. Stuart Kelston (Arthur Franz) works in an Observatory with backlit transparencies on the walls, smokes a pipe, and comes up with the darndest, most ridiculous theories out of thin air, just to lay a foundation of explanations for the Martians that will soon be making their first appearance. He lays out a rapid series of illogical, baseless non-sequiturs, that the Martians are visiting the Earth in Motherships, that they live underground on Mars and have bred a race of synthetic humans called Mutants as their slaves! David chimes in with cheery support, but Pat's first polite objection is met with the "I'm a scientist" retort made hilarious years later in Ghostbusters. Apparently, a scientist's work is to make up wild theories, and believe them until they're disproven! Pat has the gall to ask a couple of mild questions, both of which are dismissed with meaningless allusions to public scepticism of the airplane. If George MacLean has a loose concept of national security, Kelston is a madman. He spills the beans to David and Pat about the entire secret project, which, naturally, is military in nature. 7 Science / miliary collusion seems complete when Dr. Kelston talks to his Coral Bluffs Army contact, Colonel Fielding. There's no hint of ideological conflict between scientist and soldier here, not even the token sympathy given Dr. Carrington of The Thing. David's adolescent view is clearly right-wing ... Oppenheimers need not apply. "A real General wouldn't say that." The soldiers show up, led by the Gung-Ho Colonel Fielding, who behaves as if his life has been spent waiting on full alert for a cue to start fighting Martians. His phone calls set in motion the stock footage padding detailed in Part one of this article. More evidence of the David dream-logic of events: Fielding and company personally call on the family of poor dead Kathy Wilson, and then climb up on David's roof to observe the Sand Pit. That they look so ridiculous perched up there among the gables can only be because the visual is David's dream notion of what being on the roof would be like - when he's never been up there! U.S. Troops: Ultimate Heroes. When 40s and 50s films get written up, there's not enough talk about the fact that the majority of the young adult men on view were not long before part of a civilian army with an entirely different attitude to war and fighting than today's glamorized gladiators. Vet James Whitmore in Them! is the prime example of the sane & humane ideal of the American warrior, circa 1954: decency personified, there to protect and serve. This idea is infused in genres where it's not expected. The horde of police that raids the oil refinery at the end of White Heat evoke a vision of criminals at war with an America that is an army. David MacLean seems to have this attitude too ... the soldiers in his dream are perfectly disciplined, whether following ridiculous orders or totally ignoring the presence of dishy dame Pat Blake. Their engineers are just as scientifically clairvoyant as civilian Dr. Kelston. Captain Roth (Milburn Stone) somehow knows all about infrared Rayguns that can melt tunnels in the earth, and immediately diagnoses the control device retrieved from the late Kathy Wilson's skull. A couple of minutes later, he's got it rewired as a divining rod to locate the Martian tunnelers. Roth has perhaps Invaders' best, most insane dialogue line: "Don't worry son. They aren't going to use a complicated device like this just to kill people." He gives David a reassuring pat on the head; a moment that contrasts with the bit in The Day the Earth Stood Still when a soldier gives a similar pat to a kid on the sidewalk who tells him that fugitive spaceman Klaatu went thataway in a Taxicab. Audiences boo and hiss the little Judas in Day, a film with an exceptional attitude. Most 50's Sci fi films idolize the Army the same way David idolizes brave Sgt. Rinaldi, who charges single-handedly up The Hill like John Wayne in The Sands of Iwo Jima. Dream tension. The furious action that concludes Invaders from Mars becomes even more dreamlike with the repetitions of shots and scenes outlined in Part One. Dialogue lines are also repeated, especially young David's, "Colonel Fielding!, Colonel Fielding!," which is heard so often it becomes an unending echo. As Part One took pains to point out, these repetition patterns make the ending more dreamlike in two ways. First, a high level of anxiety is maintained while the actual story progression slows to a crawl. A classic anxiety dream situation is 'running in place but not getting anywhere,' exactly the feeling imparted to Invaders. Second, the repetition forces a fixation on the images that keep coming back, a fixation that has the obsessive quality of dream logic. In our dreams, shocking moments seem to hang forever in the consciousness, or illogically 'come back again, but for the first time,' over and over. In the dream logic of Invaders, cause and effect, and observation and explanation, are often reversed. The 'surprises' found in the underground Martian nest are not surprises at all, having been perfectly described earlier by Dr. Kelston and Captain Roth. "Mutants!," shouts David upon first seeing the huge green Martian slaves. 8 Zombie Sgt. Rinaldi's verbal intro for the 'Martian Intelligence' is completely redundant. David pummels the fishbowl as if having always known that the tentacled sphinx inside is fully in charge. The most illogical, dreamlike event in the tunnels is David's ability to recognize and operate the clarinet-like Infrared tunneling Raygun. (see image top of Part One.) Nobody, including David, has seen its full function, yet David takes charge of the Raygun and leaps into action, an instant expert. David MacLean's dream may be a mirror for his anxieties, but there's plenty of room within to cast himself as the know-it-all hero. David MacLean's dream-confusion between wish-fulfillment and dread becomes complete as the climax draws near. The ending montage has several dynamic up-tempo changes, as when the tanks fire to begin the assault on the underground tunnels. But, at the height of the tension, when David is running-in-place during the escape, time-progression comes to a standstill. The rising arc of tension breaks, with a music change (a harp arpeggio) and the addition of the superimposed bits of visuals from before. As the music score becomes more ethereal, the dream seems to be folding in upon itself, laying itself to rest, even with David still running, still unreleased from his nightmare. The oddly reversed scenes that conclude the montage are like mirage memories fading into themselves, those striking mental images that disappear when you try to remember them. If this were a normal dream, in the morning David would have a burst of memory, a sudden consciousness of an entire dream storyline populated with details and events. But it would be fleeting, because only some dreams fully resolve in the light of day ... most evaporate in the act of remembering them, leaving behind only random images full of mysterious significance. The strongest of these surface every once in a while into normal consciousness, and perhaps remind one of the dream. Or just remain mysteries. William Cameron Menzies' direction and unforgettable images are what make Invaders perhaps the most accurate 'nightmare film' Savant has ever experienced. The topography of its dreamscape surely match my own more than most of the 'art film' dreams of Fellini and Bergman. That the nightmare of Invaders from Mars seems to sum up the shared anxieties underlying the sheltered, secure 50s childhoods of David MacLean, myself, and millions of American boys like us possibly makes it subjectively more relevant to its time. (not exactly the same as, 'dated') Does the dreamworld of Invaders from Mars 'speak' to younger 1999 audiences? Do you feel its surreal logic? Or does it seem hopelessly dated, an artifact for the appreciation of Sci Fi fans, and maybe graphic artists? Savant would like to know. ADDED LINK: A letter response by John Mastrocco. 1. Remember, folks, whenever you hear pundits blaming real social problems on art or the media, start looking for little radio implants in the backs of their necks. Return 2. Savant remembers the 'Ahhs' of approval from the audience during a screening of The NeverEnding Story when the terrifying 'Nothing' is explained: what seemed a shallow fairy tale suddenly became multi-dimensional, and meaningful. Return 3. Another uncanny use of weird choral music that is unexpectedly successful in creating a subliminally disturbing atmosphere is Krystopher Komeda's score for The Fearless Vampire Killers. Runner up: The Gallant Hours. Return 4. Shooting this CU in reverse was probably a practical aid to allow the actor to start on his mark, perfectly framed and in focus, before stepping back away from the camera. But it still comes off as bizarrely pre-Lynchian. Return 5. The gas station attendant Jim is played by uncredited Todd Karns, who also played George Bailey's younger brother, war hero Harry, in It's a Wonderful Life. Wonderful was a flop in 1946 and probably no influence on Karns' role in Invaders. Return 6. If this wasn't a private joke in Invaders, it certainly became one in 1980's Airplane!, in the 'Raid on Macho Grande' flashback sequence. Chalk up Sci Fi fan Airplane! producer Jon Davison for that one, Savant bets. Return 7. Kelston arrogantly states that once nuclear weapons can be 'anchored' in space, any country that "dares attack us can be wiped off the face of the Earth in a matter of minutes." Swell. Funny that in the very first serious 50's American Sci Fi film, Destination Moon, the icebreaker that funds the private moon rocket is the stern warning that if America doesn't use the moon as a nuclear weapons base, its enemies will. With only a few exceptions, the entire history of Sci Fi film has been militaristic, from Forbidden Planet through 2001 all the way to Until the End of the World with its Indian Nuclear Satellite threatening the Earth at the dawn of the millenium. The American press parroted the official US line that our Space Program was non-military, while the American Sci Fi film told the truth, years before it came to pass. Are these Martians really conquering Earth or, like the Arachnids of Starship Troopers, just trying to neutralize a nuclear threat? Return 8. The mutants always reminded Savant of the Winkie Guards from The Wizard of Oz ... something about the noses, and their slavish stupidity. Return 9. Savant met Janine Perreau in 1996; her actress sister Gigi was directing a play at my daughter's school. Janine, a popular child performer at the time, just remembers Mr. Menzies being nice, and having to pick flowers and drop through a trap door on the hill, where a stagehand caught her! She's very proud of her 'zombie' closeups, and was happy to be told that, yes, she was probably the first 'possessed' child on the American screen, years before The Innocents, Village of the Damned, or The Exorcist. Return 10. Staehling, Richard, From Rock Around the Clock to The Trip: The Truth about Teen Movies Kings of the Bs, A. Dutton 1975 NYC, Edited by Todd McCarthy and Charles Flynn Return Don't forget to read Part one of this article. While you're at it, check out the equally in-depth articles on Things to Come, Danger: Diabolik, The Vampire Lovers, and, appropriately, the new millenium-themed Until the End of the World. Special Thanks to Larry Tuczynski for help with this page ... visit his Godzilla Page sometime! Text (c) Copyright 1999 Glenn Erickson [Savant Main Page] [Savant Links] [Article Index] [Review Index] [Savant 5 Year Report] DVD Savant Text © Copyright 2007 Glenn Erickson Advertise With Us Review Staff | About DVD Talk | Newsletter Subscribe | Join DVD Talk Forum Copyright © DVDTalk.com All rights reserved | Privacy Policy