I actually watched this week’s entry into TERROR FILLED MONDAYS! over the weekend.

It Came From Outer Space was Universal-International’s first serious venture into ’50s science-fiction, as their earlier attempts had been decidedly lighter fare like Abbott And Costello Meet The Invisible Man and Abbott And Costello Go To Mars. 1953’s It Came From Outer Space (originally titled The Strangers From Outer Space) tells of a crippled alien starship that crash-lands in the Arizona desert, and of the attempts of amateur astronomer John Putnam (Richard Carlson) to convince the frightened townsfolk to leave the aliens alone so they can repair their craft and return from whence they came.

It’s not a great movie but, I do think of It Came From Outer Space as one of those touchstones. To me, it’s a flick that exemplifies the kind of movie we picture when we talk about the sci-fi and horror movies that come out of the fifties.

First off, there’s the soundtrack to the movie. It’s classic fifties all the way even down to the use of a theremin:

Probably because this was Universal’s first film about invaders from space, the studio felt they needed an original score, as nothing in their music library would impart the appropriate alien gloss to the picture. The single piece of previously-written music in the movie was a three-second excerpt from a Henry Mancini song (“Jitterbug Routine’) tracked in from Sally And Saint Anne and heard over a radio. In addition, a plain-old original orchestral score wasn’t deemed sufficient to create the necessary extraterrestrial ambience, and so the film’s composers — Henry Mancini, Herman Stein, and Irving Gertz — decided to feature the Theremin in their score.

You can even hear a great sample of the soundtrack by clicking here! (sample from the incredible Monstrous Movie Music website).

The musical score is one of those things that definitely stand out about the film but this is a movie that has a slew of connections to movies and tv.

Director Jack Arnold was a prolific man and was responsible for several ’50s scifi cult classics including Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Revenge of the Creature (1955), This Island Earth (1955) (reshoots), Tarantula (1955), and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). He would later go on to have a long career in TV throughout the sixties and the seventies directing shows such as “Peter Gunn,” “Dr. Kildare,” “Perry Mason,” “Rawhide,” “Gilligan’s Island,” “The Mod Squad,” “Nanny and the Professor,” “It Takes a Thief,” “The Brady Bunch,” “McCloud,” “Wonder Woman,” “The Love Boat,” “The Bionic Woman” and “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century”

Another TV connection via Arnold is that he would later go on to work with one of the actors from It Came From Outer Space, Russell Johnson who would be familiar to viewers as The Professor from Gilligan’s Island! Johnson no stranger to Terror Filled Mondays having a leading role in the first entry Attack of the Crab Monsters.

It Came from Outer Space also marks the first time the work of Ray Bradbury appeared on the big screen:

Director Jack Arnold first brought Bradbury to movie theaters in 1953 with It Came from Outer Space, a Harry Essex screenplay developed from Bradbury’s screen treatment, “The Meteor.” Three weeks later, Eugène Lourié’s The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953), based on Bradbury’s "The Fog Horn," about a sea monster mistaking the sound of a fog horn for the mating cry of a female, was released. Bradbury’s close friend Ray Harryhausen produced the stop-motion animation of the creature. (Bradbury would later return the favor by writing a short story, “Tyrannosaurus Rex,” about a stop-motion animator who strongly resembled Harryhausen.) Over the next 50 years, more than 35 features, shorts, and TV movies were based on Bradbury’s stories or screenplays.

So, as you can see, while It Came from Outer Space may seem a bit tame by today’s standards, it really has to be considered one of those landmark movies. Oh, lest I forget the basic plot synopsis follows:

Author and amateur astronomer John Putnam (Carlson) and schoolteacher Ellen Fields (Rush) watch a great meteor crash to earth near the small town of Sand Rock, Arizona. After visiting the crash site, John Putnam notices a strange object at the impact site, and comes to believe the meteor is not a meteor at all, but an alien spaceship. After a landslide covers the mysterious craft, John Putnam’s story is ridiculed by the townspeople, the sheriff (Drake), and the local media. Even Ellen is unsure of what to believe at first, but soon agrees to assist John in further investigation.