10/31/07: Invasion of the Saucer-Men (1957)
Earth vs. The Spider (1958)Democrats don’t know it, but you can love teenagers and the Establishment at the same time. Today’s Halloween double-feature is, admittedly, a reminder that it was a little easier to do so in the ’50s—mainly because the hippies hadn’t laid down a whole bunch of rules back then.
Let’s start with 1957’s
Invasion of the Saucer-Men. After one of the best title sequences ever, our story begins with a narrator telling us about the town of Hicksburg, and an “easy-going farmer” who lives on the outskirts. We see the scowling farmer brandishing a shotgun. There’s some humorous sarcasm there, but we certainly believe a shotgun can provide a peaceful easy feeling.
We’re told a little more about Hicksburg, which seems like an ideal American town. The teens are all sex-crazed and the local Army recruiter doesn’t have any complaints. The only real problem with Hicksburg is that Frank Gorshin dies too early. That’s in his role as a visiting lowlife whose partner is doing the narrating. They’re looking for a hustle, and while Artie is trying to get some sleep, Sam (played by Gorshin) stumbles upon a downed flying saucer. Unfortunately, Sam also stumbles upon the evil saucer-men, who are truly legendary drive-in creations.
Artie actually sleeps through half the events he narrates. Our real protagonists are star-crossed teenagers Johnny and Joan, whose stealthy elopement is ruined when they run over one of the little green men. The intergalactic creep had it coming, since he wasn’t crossing at the intersection on a dark backwoods road. Johnny and Joan try to find help while the Army is busy perpetuating a fairly genial cover-up.
This adds to a typical teens-vs.-unbelieving-adults aspect of the movie, but that’s okay. The one adult who believes Johnny and Joan is Artie, who’s a veteran himself. “Does it work?” Johnny asks when Artie brings along his revolver. “It worked all right for the Nazi I took it from,” replies Artie.
The political aspect to
Saucer-Men is kind of humble, but it stands out. The typical teens of Hicksburg are also typical hot-rodders, which builds to a big finish that wouldn’t be the same with a bunch of teens in Priuses. (Unless, of course, it was hot-rodding Al Gore III, and he couldn’t pass the balloon test that Johnny easily aces.) The thing that makes
Invasion of the Saucer-Men a real classic—and this isn’t much of a SPOILER—is that the rallying teens kill the aliens with their cars.
As often noted, we’re not lazy enough to knock out an entry on, say,
The Fast and the Furious just because the film’s about burning fossil fuels.
Invasion of the Saucer-Men, however, celebrates automobile fetishization. Joan doesn’t know how to maintain her car battery, but she’s added a big chrome spotlight to her car simply because “a girl always needs an extra mirror.”
Invasion of the Saucer-Men also ends with what remains a timely comment on popular media. That title sequence we mentioned is the first pages of a book, and the film’s ending reveals that it’s written by Artie. That’s why he’s the narrator, and the hustler sounds worthy of Oprah’s Book Club with his closing lines: “A true story? Well, that’s the nice thing about the book writing business. You pay before you read.”
Earth vs. The Spider—commonly known as
The Spider—also has a great title sequence. It’s subversive content is a lot different, though. The action starts with a relatively gory opening scene, as a teenager’s dad is killed on a deserted back road. Then we cut to the oldest cast of high-school kids in the history of drive-in movies. Some of them look older than the science teacher who’s explaining about positive and negative electrons.
Carol Flynn is ignoring Mr. Kingman, because she’s busy passing a note asking her boyfriend Mike to join in hunting for her missing dad. They’re soon wandering into the haunted cave on the outskirts of town, where they discover that there’s a giant spider on the prowl. The local sheriff is skeptical, but Mr. Kingman has examined a piece of a giant web that the kids brought back. He explains to the sheriff that a giant spider would be difficult to fatally shoot—due to their simple nervous system—so it might be a good idea to load up on DDT.
Isn’t that heartwarming? There wouldn't be room for a genocidal environmentalist like Rachel Carson in the small town of River Falls. You probably never would find a copy of
Silent Spring in the local library. (There’d probably be a teenage Al Gore sulking around and complaining that the town might as well be called Hicksburg.) In fact, River Falls is so DDT-friendly that the sheriff amiably agrees to bring along a truckload to the cave.
The exterminator pulls up and asks why they need the DDT. “I have to mix the DDT according to what you want killed,” he explains, adding that the usual dose is a 2%-4% solution. “Make it 50%,” says Mr. Kingman.
The sheriff remains skeptical until Carol discovers the withered husk that used to be her father. Then along comes the spider and DDT saves the day. The sheriff wants to board up the cave—with the dead spider inside—but Mr. Kingman has another idea. He wants to study the spider. To his credit, Mr. Kingman isn’t the stereotypical B-movie egghead who wants to get us all killed in the pursuit of science. He wants to study the giant spider so that we can learn more about killing any other ones that might be out there.
The giant spider is temporarily housed in the gym of the high school. The local rock ’n roll combo sneaks into the gym for a rehearsal, and then a lot of students join in to dance around the giant spider who ate the father of one of their classmates. Carol doesn’t seem to be the most popular girl in school. Big surprise—the (fairly lite) rock ’n roll revives the spider, which teaches us two big lessons: don’t rock around the arachnid, and never settle for a mere 50% solution of DDT.
Once again, it’s no big SPOILER to say that the giant spider is once again vanquished—and with the cave being dynamited shut for good measure. It’s nice to see the local authorities and Mr. Kingman getting along to the very end, though. The final scenes have the sheriff noting that the dynamite will leave the spider dead and buried. Mr. Kingman responds, “I’d say at least until some egghead comes along and digs it up again.” That would probably be Rachel Carson looking for a good poster child.
Make it your own: Invasion of the Saucer-Men still doesn’t have a DVD release, and
the overdue VHS quickly went out-of-print and pricey. The good news is that
Earth vs. The Spider is available on a nice
double-bill DVD with
War of the Colossal Beast.
While it’s not political, we’d like to add that
Invasion of the Saucer-Men has an alien vs. bull scene that wouldn’t be matched until the zombie vs. shark fight in 1979’s
Zombie. And speaking of giant spiders, don’t forget
Eight-Legged Freaks.
