Monsters Deserve Another Look
Mention 1950s monster movies and people picture rubber suits, spaceships dangling from a string, and enormous insects terrorizing screaming extras. There was plenty of that, but the decade also gave us some remarkably intelligent, atmospheric genre filmmaking. These movies prove that sometimes the monster was only the beginning.
Screenshot of Steve McQueen in 'The Blob' (1958), Paramount
The Man From Planet X (1951)
Director Edgar G. Ulmer made limited resources work remarkably hard in this eerie tale of an alien visitor appearing in the Scottish moors. Robert Clarke, Margaret Field, and William Schallert lead a movie whose fog-shrouded sets and melancholy atmosphere make it feel considerably more sophisticated than its modest budget suggests.
film trailer screenshot (United Artists), Wikimedia Commons
The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
Before Godzilla stomped Tokyo, Eugène Lourié unleashed a prehistoric Rhedosaurus awakened by an atomic test. Paul Christian and Paula Raymond star, but Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion creature steals the picture. The combination of nuclear anxiety, documentary-style seriousness, and spectacular effects helped establish the giant-monster formula that countless movies copied.
Warner Bros., Wikimedia Commons
Invaders From Mars (1953)
William Cameron Menzies brought his extraordinary visual imagination to this nightmare about a boy who realizes adults around him are being controlled by aliens. Jimmy Hunt, Helena Carter, and Arthur Franz star. Seen through a child's eyes, the strange sets and unsettling compositions give the movie an almost dreamlike paranoia.
Screenshot from Invaders from Mars, 20th Century Fox (1953)
It Came From Outer Space (1953)
Jack Arnold's alien movie is considerably more thoughtful than its title suggests. Richard Carlson and Barbara Rush encounter extraterrestrials stranded in Arizona, but the visitors aren't simply invaders waiting to be blasted. The movie's surprisingly sympathetic treatment of the aliens gives this atmospheric desert thriller an intelligence many imitators lacked.
Screenshot from It Came from Outer Space, NBCUniversal (1953)
The Magnetic Monster (1953)
Here's a monster movie without anything resembling a conventional monster. Richard Carlson and King Donovan play government scientists confronting a radioactive isotope that continually increases in mass while consuming energy. Directed by Curt Siodmak, the film plays like an unusually serious scientific procedural built around an ingenious escalating threat.
Screenshot from The Magnetic Monster, United Artists (1953)
Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954)
Jack Arnold's Gill-man became so iconic that it's easy to forget how accomplished the original movie actually is. Richard Carlson, Julie Adams, and Richard Denning anchor a beautifully photographed Amazon adventure whose underwater sequences give the creature an eerie grace. The monster is frightening, but also strangely tragic and sympathetic.
Universal International, Wikimedia Commons
Them! (1954)
Giant radioactive ants sound like the ultimate 1950s B-movie joke, yet Gordon Douglas plays the premise almost completely straight. James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon, and James Arness investigate mysterious deaths before discovering the horrifying explanation. Its procedural structure and slowly escalating suspense remain impressively effective.
Screenshot from Them!, Warner Bros. (1954)
Gog (1954)
Ivan Tors concluded his loose Office of Scientific Investigation trilogy with this surprisingly forward-looking story about scientists investigating deadly incidents inside an underground research facility. Herbert L. Strock directed Richard Egan and Constance Dowling in a movie involving automation, computers, surveillance, nuclear technology, and robots decades before those anxieties became commonplace.
Screenshot from Gog, United Artists (1954)
Tarantula (1955)
Yes, it's about an enormous spider. But director Jack Arnold and stars John Agar, Mara Corday, and Leo G. Carroll approach the material with admirable seriousness. Stark desert photography, disturbing makeup, and Arnold's ability to make isolated landscapes menacing elevate Tarantula well above the countless giant-bug pictures it resembles.
Screenshot from Tarantula, Universal-International (1955)
The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)
Hammer horror was still developing when Val Guest directed this grim British science-fiction thriller starring Brian Donlevy and Richard Wordsworth. An astronaut returns from space infected by an alien organism that gradually transforms him. Guest's fast pacing and almost documentary-style approach make the increasingly horrific story unusually convincing.
Hammer Film Productions, Wikimedia Commons
It Came From Beneath The Sea (1955)
Robert Gordon directed Kenneth Tobey and Faith Domergue against an enormous radioactive octopus, but the real attraction is Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion work. The climactic attack on San Francisco remains wonderful monster-movie spectacle, particularly when the creature wraps its tentacles around the Golden Gate Bridge.
Columbia Pictures, Wikimedia Commons
X The Unknown (1956)
Hammer nearly made this another Quatermass adventure before creating scientist Adam Royston instead, played by Dean Jagger. Leslie Norman directed the story of a radioactive subterranean entity emerging from beneath Scotland. The shapeless monster is unusual, but the movie's grim atmosphere and intelligent treatment of its premise are the real attractions.
Screenshot from X the Unknown, Warner Bros. Pictures (1956)
The Mole People (1956)
John Agar and Hugh Beaumont discover a subterranean civilization in Virgil W. Vogel's wonderfully strange Universal production. Its pseudo-scientific premise is undeniably pulpy, but the underground sets, oppressive atmosphere, and surprisingly elaborate lost-civilization storyline make The Mole People much more interesting than its reputation as disposable Saturday-matinee nonsense suggests.
Screenshot from The Mole People, Universal-International (1956)
The Monster That Challenged The World (1957)
Giant prehistoric mollusks hardly sound promising, yet director Arnold Laven created an unusually sturdy creature feature around them. Tim Holt and Audrey Dalton lead a surprisingly grounded story involving strange deaths around California's Salton Sea. The practical monsters are memorable, but the restrained procedural approach is what really helps the movie.
Screenshot from The Monster That Challenged the World, United Artists (1957)
The Monolith Monsters (1957)
Few monster movies invented a threat this strange. Alien rocks grow when exposed to water, collapse, reproduce, and gradually threaten an entire town while petrifying people nearby. John Sherwood directs Grant Williams and Lola Albright in what amounts to a disaster movie about an unstoppable geological chain reaction.
Screenshot from The Monolith Monsters, Universal Pictures (1957)
The Abominable Snowman (1957)
Hammer advertised a Yeti movie but delivered something much more contemplative. Val Guest directs Peter Cushing and Forrest Tucker as members of a Himalayan expedition whose assumptions about the creatures prove dangerously misguided. Nigel Kneale's screenplay ultimately asks whether humanity might actually be the more primitive species.
Screenshot from The Abominable Snowman, Warner Bros. Pictures (1957)
The Black Scorpion (1957)
Edward Ludwig directed Richard Denning and Mara Corday in this Mexico-set adventure about gigantic prehistoric scorpions released by volcanic activity. The story is straightforward, but Willis O'Brien and Pete Peterson's stop-motion effects give the creatures tremendous personality, particularly during spectacular underground sequences and the climactic attack on Mexico City.
Screenshot from The Black Scorpion, Warner Bros. Pictures (1957)
The Mysterians (1957)
Director Ishirō Honda and effects master Eiji Tsuburaya, the team behind Godzilla (1954), went considerably bigger with this colorful Japanese alien-invasion spectacle. Kenji Sahara and Yumi Shirakawa appear alongside flying saucers, futuristic weapons, enormous battles, and giant robot Mogera in an ambitious demonstration of Toho's expanding science-fiction imagination.
The Blob (1958)
The title sounds ridiculous. The movie isn't. Irvin Yeaworth directs Steve McQueen, Aneta Corsaut, and Earl Rowe in a clever story about teenagers desperately trying to convince skeptical adults that an alien organism is consuming townspeople. The generation-gap element gives the movie more substance than its famous gelatinous monster suggests.
Screenshot from The Blob, Paramount Pictures (1958)
Fiend Without A Face (1958)
Disembodied brains crawling around on spinal cords should be hilarious, yet Arthur Crabtree's British production becomes genuinely unnerving. Marshall Thompson stars in a story involving invisible creatures inadvertently created through thought and atomic energy. Once the monsters become visible, surprisingly gruesome stop-motion effects push the movie into unforgettable nightmare territory.
Screenshot from Fiend Without a Face, MGM (1958)
It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958)
Edward L. Cahn's claustrophobic thriller traps Marshall Thompson and his fellow astronauts aboard a spacecraft with a murderous Martian creature. The similarities to later movies about monsters stalking spaceship crews are impossible to miss. Its confined setting and methodical suspense make this modest production remarkably effective even today.
Screenshot from It! The Terror from Beyond Space, United Artists (1958)
I Married A Monster From Outer Space (1958)
That sensational title disguises an unexpectedly unsettling movie. Gene Fowler Jr. directs Gloria Talbott as a newlywed who realizes her husband, played by Tom Tryon, has changed dramatically. Alien infiltration becomes a metaphor for marital alienation, identity, and emotional isolation, giving the movie surprising psychological weight.
Screenshot from I Married a Monster from Outer Space, Paramount Pictures (1958)
The Alligator People (1959)
Roy Del Ruth directs Beverly Garland as a woman searching for her mysteriously vanished husband, played by Richard Crane, only to discover a bizarre medical experiment in the Louisiana swamps. Lon Chaney Jr. adds menace, while the Southern Gothic atmosphere makes this considerably stranger and moodier than its lurid title promises.
Screenshot from The Alligator People, 20th Century Fox (1959)
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