cult film freak: HELENA CARTER HEADLINES THE ORIGINAL 'INVADERS FROM MARS'

Helena Carter and Jimmy Hunt in INVADERS FROM MARS Year: 1953 Rating: ***

With sparsely minimalist yet highly stylized interiors ranging from a police station to an astronomical observatory along with deliberately over-scored, melodramatic human closeups, the most complicated set from INVADERS FROM MARS is the most familiar in the 1950's: a Norman Rockwell-style suburban-rural home where the leading character, a pulp-reading young boy... only child to affable dream parents... witnesses a spaceship landing outside his window...

An iconic view duplicated for the 1980's remake: a rocky-stairwell/hill leading to a sudden crest, where the boy witnesses his father throwing a General over: becoming one of many locals sucked into the same sand-hole the initial spaceship vanished into, and that initially only the kid... played by wide-eyed boy-next-door Jimmy Hunt... had seen...

Helena Carter and Jimmy Hunt in INVADERS FROM MARS with Arthur Franz

Soon joined by lovely female scientist Helena Carter, finally first-billed (in her final role) after playing secondary dames leading up (like KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE), her scientist partner Arthur Franz, and a barrage of ultra-serious military types sharing into the boy's vision...

Turning what's an intriguing Cold War style paranoiac premise into a rushed third act (lacking a fulfilling second act) within a murky-brownish/icky-green underground, involving the actual aliens in place of the more enigmatically possessed, zombie-like townsfolk... as it's where and when INVADERS loses both suspense and aesthetic.