Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1956
It Conquered the World
Buy It Conquered the World now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'It Conquered the World' is an independently made 1956 American black-and-white science fiction film, produced and directed by Roger Corman, starring Peter Graves, Lee Van Cleef, Beverly Garland, and Sally Fraser. 'It Conquered the World' was released theatrically by American International Pictures as a double feature with 'The She-Creature'.Frank (1998) The Films of Roger Corman. BatsfordWarren 1982
'It Conquered the World' concerns an alien creature from the planet Venus that secretly wants to take control of the Earth. The creature makes radio contact with a disillusioned human scientist, who agrees to help because the scientist believes that such an alien intervention will bring peace and save a doomed humanity from itself.
Plot
Dr. Tom Anderson, an embittered scientist, has made contact with a Venusian creature, while using his radio transmitter. The alien's secret motivation is to take complete control of the Earth by enslaving humanity using mind control devices; the alien claims that it merely desires to bring peace to the world by eliminating all emotions. Anderson agrees to help the creature and even intends to allow it to assimilate his wife, Claire and friend Dr. Paul Nelson.
The Venusian then disrupts all electric power on Earth, including motor vehicles, leaving Dr. Nelson to resort to riding a bicycle.
After avoiding a flying bat-like creature which carries the mind control device, Dr. Nelson returns home to find his wife, Joan newly assimilated. She then attempts to force his own assimilation using another bat-creature in her possession, and he is forced to kill her in self-defense. By then, the only people who are still free from the Venusian's influence are Nelson, Anderson, Anderson's wife and a group of army soldiers on station in the nearby woods.
Nelson finally persuades the paranoid Anderson that he has made a horrible mistake in blindly trusting the Venusian's motives, allying himself with a creature bent on world domination. When they discover that Tom's wife Claire has taken a rifle to the alien's cave in order to kill it, they hurriedly follow her, but the creature kills her before they can rescue her. Finally, seeing the loss of everything he holds dear, Dr. Anderson viciously attacks the Venusian by holding a blowtorch to the creature's face; Anderson dies at the alien's hand as it expires. Arriving on the scene too late to save his friend, Nelson sadly reflects on how Anderson's misguided ideals ultimately led to death and devastation, and muses that a solution to humanity's problems must ultimately be achieved by humanity itself.
Cast
*Peter Graves as Dr. Paul Nelson
*Lee Van Cleef as Dr. Tom Anderson
*Beverly Garland as Claire Anderson
*Sally Fraser as Joan Nelson
*Russ Bender as General James Pattick
*Taggart Casey as Sheriff N.J. Shallert
*Karen Kadler as Dr. Ellen Peters
*Dick Miller as Sgt. Neil
*Jonathan Haze as Corporal Manuel Ortiz
*Paul Harbor as Dr. Floyd Mason
*Charles B. Griffith as Dr. Pete Shelton
*Thomas E. Jackson as George Haskell
*Marshall Bradford as Secretary Platt
*David McMahon as General Carpenter
*Paul Blaisdell as The Monster (uncredited)
Production
Development
The film was inspired by the box office success of 'Day the World Ended', also directed by Corman. It was written by Lou Rusoff (Sam Arkoff's brother-in-law), but before being completed, Rusoff's brother died and he had to leave for Canada. Corman then called in Charles Griffith to do a final rewrite, two days before filming began.Graham, Aaron W.[http://sensesofcinema.com/2005/35/charles_b_griffith/ ['Little Shop of Genres: An interview with Charles B. Griffith."] 'Senses of Cinema', April 15, 2005. Retrieved: January 13, 2015. Griffith does have a small part as a scientist.Griffith said Rusoff's script "was incomprehensible which was strange because he was quite meticulous. Lou's brother was dying at the time which most likely had something to do with it." Griffith said he "wrote streams of dialogue. The picture was terrible."
Peter Graves' casting was announced in March 1956.Former Studio Messenger Produces, Directs Picture Hopper, Hedda. Chicago Daily Tribune 30 Mar 1956: a6. Beverly Garland's casting was announced shortly afterwards.Drama: Milestone Will Resume Here With Kirk Douglas; Tribute to Zanuck Due
Schallert, Edwin. Los Angeles Times 3 Apr 1956: B7.
Shooting
Filming began 3 April 1956.The design of the creature was Paul Blaisdell's idea, and he thought that coming from a big planet, 'It' would have evolved to deal with heavy gravity and would therefore be low to the ground. Corman later admitted this was a mistake, saying the creature would have been more frightening had 'It' been larger or taller. When Beverly Garland first saw the creature, she commented "'That' conquered the world?" and claimed she kicked 'It' over (unlikely, since Blaisdell said in an interview that it took three men to turn the prop onto its side for the film's death scene finale).McGee 1996, p. 58.
Paul Blaisdell, who made the creature, researched Venus and "came to the conclusion that if it would have any life it would be vegetable. In trying to make it look as far removed from anything resembling animal-like, I whipped up a nightmarish creation resembling a pear-shaped, cucumber- like creature, with two mobile, branch- like arms." He created the monster with rubber skin over a wooden frame, latex antenna and carved pine teeth. Flashlights were used to make the eyes glow. Originally the claws worked, but they were damaged on the first day of shooting.Frank, A. (2000) The Films of Roger Corman. Batsford Publishing When Blaisdell unveiled the costume to the film's producer James Nicholson, Nicholson happily exclaimed "Paul, you've done it again!"
The creature was mounted on wheels. Blaisdell would crouch inside to enable the creature to move. "Originally, the creature was supposed to be in a dark cave all the time so an air of mystery would surround it," said Blaisdell. "But Roger decided it would be more effective if the creature would make a defiant appearance outside its hiding place and be destroyed by a charge of bayonet-armed soldiers. He also wanted the creature to appear dead in the film's finale by having it lying on its side!"
In the bayoneting scene, one of the soldiers stuck a bayonet in the wrong spot and nearly skewered Blaisdell's skull who was inside it, working the costume. Luckily Blaisdell's wife had persuaded him to don a helmet for protection, which deflected the blade.
The creature's working pincers were broken on the first day of shooting, but its arms could still be raised. The melting eye socket effect was completed using chocolate syrup. Blaisdell's wife was inside the suit, manually working the chocolate-squirting device, which backed up and squirted all over her.
Garland later recalled the first time she saw the creature at Bronson Canyon:
I said to Roger, That isn't the monster! That little thing there is not the monster, is it?" He smiled back at me, "Yeah. Looks pretty good, doesn't it?" I said, Roger! I could bop that monster over the head with my handbag!" This thing was no monster, it was a table ornament! He said, "Well, don't worry about it because we're gonna show you, and then we'll show the monster, back and forth." "Well, don't ever show us together, because if you do everybody'll know that I could step on this little creature!" Eventually I think they did do some extra work on the monster: I think they re-sprayed it so it would look a little scarier, and made it a good bit taller. When we actually filmed, they shot it in shadow, and never showed the two of us together.
Griffith said he called the creature prop "Denny Dimwit and somebody else called It an ice-cream cone. I was around when Paul Blaisdell was building it, and he thought the camera would make it look bigger." Blaisdell himself referred to it as "Beulah" during production. A good portion of Beulah disintegrated due to the shoddy care taken to store it, and whatever was left of it was destroyed in the fire-scene finale of AIP's 1958 film 'How to Make a Monster'.
Release history
'It Conquered the World' was released theatrically by AIP in July 1956 on a double bill with 'The She-Creature'.New Bridey Regresses to Prehistoric
C S. Los Angeles Times 31 Aug 1956: 22.
The film originally received an "X" certificate in the UK, meaning that the picture could only be seen by adults. At issue, the scene of the creature being destroyed by a blowtorch was seen as animal cruelty. However, producer Samuel Z. Arkoff convinced the film board that the violence was against an otherworldly person, and not an animal, earning the film its passing certificate.Rubine, Irving. "Boys meet ghouls, make money." 'The New York Times', March 16, 1958, p. X7.
Reception
Griffith said, "I asked for my name not to be on that picture, so I was unbilled. Surprisingly, it got good reviews."
'Variety' said "this flying saucer pic is a definite cut above normal, and should help pull its weight at b.o., despite modest budget... It must be admitted that the packed house of moppets at the show caught loved the gore, and continually shrieked avid appreciation. The Lou Rusoff screenplay poses some remarkably adult questions amidst the derring-do.. Corman does a generally good job of mingling the necessary backgroundsetting with fast-paced dialog... Only a few patches of abstract discussion, fail to hold audience attention.... Corman would have been wiser to merely suggest the creature, rather than construct the awesome-looking and mechanically clumsy, rabherized horror. It inspired more titters than terror."[https://archive.org/details/variety204-1956-09/page/n60/mode/1up/search/%22conquered+the+world%22?q=%28%22it+conquered+the+world%22%29+AND+creator%3A%28variety%29 Review of film] at Variety
'Sight and Sound' called it "sharp, economical and really frightening".Film Clips
ARKADIN. Sight and Sound; London Vol. 32, Iss. 3, (Summer 1963): 140.
Film historian and critic Leonard Maltin called 'It Conquered the World' "... well acted and interesting but awkwardly plotted".Maltin 2009, p. 695.
Monthly Film Bulletin found the film exciting.
'Time Out' magazine, however, gave the film a negative review, criticizing its poor special effects. Critic Tony Rayns opined, "You have to see a movie like this to realise that film-makers who feel they have nothing to lose are rarer than you'd think".Rayns, Tony. [http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/76243/it_conquered_the_world.html "Review: 'It Conquered the World'."] 'Time Out' magazine. Retrieved: January 13, 2015.
The 'Chicago Reader' gave the film a generally positive review, saying, "Amazingly, this 1953 [sic] picture isn't half bad".Kehr, Dave. [http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/it-conquered-the-world/Film?oid=1110260 "Review: 'It Conquered the World'."] 'Chicago Reader'. Retrieved: January 13, 2015. 'Allmovie' gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, calling it an "above-average quickie".Erickson, Hal. [https://archive.today/20120722004936/http://www.allrovi.com/movies/movie/-v25504?r=allmovie "Review'It Conquered the World'."]
'All Movie Guide' (Allrovi.com). 'Retrieved: January 13, 2015.
Creature Feature gave the movie 3 out of 5 stars, praising its campiness.Stanley, J (2000) Creature Feature: 3rd Edition
Later releases
During the 1960s, 'It Conquered the World' was syndicated to television by American International Television. VHS versions appeared in the 1990s on the US home video market (RCA Columbia Home Video), but these are no longer in distribution, nor is the film available on DVD or Blu-ray in the US[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0001M6X9Y "'It Conquered the World' US-American VHS."] 'Amazon.com'. Retrieved: January 13, 2015. or in the UK.[https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000OA6SQQ "'It Conquered the World' British VHS."] 'Amazon.co.uk.' Retrieved: January 13, 2015.
In 2001, Susan Hart, the widow of AIP co-founder James H. Nicholson, sued A&E Networks for copyright infringement after the channel used footage from the film in a documentary about Peter Graves.
Remake
In 1966, 'It Conquered the World' was remade in 16mm color by self-proclaimed "schlockmeister" Larry Buchanan after he secured rights from AIP; he retitled his rewritten remake 'Zontar, the Thing from Venus' and they sold directly it to television syndication.
In popular culture
*Frank Zappa's 1974 live album 'Roxy & Elsewhere' referred to the film in the introduction for the song "Cheepnis".
*The film's closing monologue inspired the similar ending of 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show'.
*The end of the film was shown at the beginning of 'Elvira, Mistress of the Dark' (1988).
*Filmmaker Jim Wynorski included a Beulah-lookalike monster in the finale of his horror/comedy 'Transylvania Twist' as a respectful homage to the old 1950s AIP films.
*In 1991, 'It Conquered the World' was the subject of the comedy television series 'Mystery Science Theater 3000'; joke topics included poor monster props, occasionally wooden acting, and an overblown closing monologue, although Dr. Clayton Forrester did concede it was probably Roger Corman's "finest film to date".
*Audio samples from the film were included in the song "Facing That" from M83's self-titled debut album, released in 2001.
*Season 4, episode 12 of SCTV featured an overarching story, "Zontar," which was closely based on "It Conquered the Word." Bonar Bain was featured as the scientist played by Lee Van Cleef.
See also
*List of American films of 1956
References
Notes
Bibliography
*Maltin, Leonard. 'Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide 2009'. New York: New American Library, 2009 (originally published as 'TV Movies', then 'Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide'), First edition 1969, published annually since 1988. .
*McGee, Mark. 'Faster and Furiouser: The Revised and Fattened Fable of American International Pictures'. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 1996. .
*Warren, Bill. 'Keep Watching The Skies' Vol. I: 19501957'. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 1982. .
Buy It Conquered the World now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 1956