Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: It Conquered the World

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, Welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob
Lamb and Hey, today we're going to be looking back
in an episode that originally published nine, twenty twenty four.
It is going to be Roger Corman's nineteen fifty six
sci fi horror thriller It Conquered the World, starring Peter Graves,
Beverly Garland, and Lee Van Cleif. This one's a lot
of fun, some cool ideas in here, and an infamously

(00:29):
funny looking monster, so let's check it out.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
And this is Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema,
we are finally going to be devoting a full episode
to a movie that we have referenced in passing quite
a bit over the years. I don't know if it's
come up as often as Highlander two, but it's got
to be close. This is the subject of a fan
favorite episode of Mystery Science Theater three thousand from season

(01:10):
three with Joel and Another example of one of our
favorite niche subgenres, low budget atomic age sci fi horror
thrillers directed by Roger Corman, which played as part of
a double bill at your local drive in in the fifties.
This one. Most of these movies are great because they're
usually less than seventy minutes long. This one's at the

(01:32):
longer end of that scale. It's like sixty nine seventy minutes,
you know. They get even shorter. Attack of the Crab
Monsters is like, what, sixty two minutes or something, But
it's still right in the zone. And as I've said before,
I want to be on record that I think it's
okay for feature films to be that short. You don't

(01:53):
need to try to stretch it out, as even this
short movie does with all these scenes of driving and parking.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yes, indeed, modern filmmakers, you can make them this short.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
We approve. Oh wait, but I didn't say the name yet. Sorry,
Today we're talking about it Conquered the World from nineteen
fifty six, starring Peter Graves, Beverly Garland, and a devious
Earth betraying Lee van Cleef, who is redeemed in the end.
You know. So this is a movie I've seen primarily

(02:24):
in the Mystery Science Theater episode, and I guess because
of the MST framing, I'd never really given it a
serious chance on its own terms. I actually had seen
it on its own before, but still just kind of
with the mind of looking for the cheesy bits, and
there are plenty of those, we can talk about them.

(02:44):
But this movie is not bad. This is a pretty solid,
scrappy drive in film.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Absolutely. Yeah. This is a film I too had seen
numerous times in its MST three K format over the decades,
but this was actually not my first time watching it
straight up. So yeah, I feel like, as is often
the case with the best MST three K episodes, the
underlying movie is very watchable on its own. You know,
it has some wonky pacing at times, nothing really zings visually,

(03:16):
at least as it's intended to zing.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
I mean, I would say the monster zing's but mostly
because of how funny it looks.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yes, yeah, yeah, it does not inspire terror, but it
is amazing and it's in a different way. Yeah. It
has a couple of spirited performances that we'll discuss, and
it at least bats around some deeper sci fi concepts
as well as some rather obvious anxieties about communist brainwashing. Now,
this is not a film about communists, but as is

(03:46):
often the case with some of these sci fi films
about alien minutes from this time period, you know, it's
very clear that they're getting into some of the popular
anxieties about communism in the way that they're described being
and dealing with this extraterrestrial.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
Threat in most of these movies with alien brainwashing, and
it's the same case in this one. The alien ideology
is less controversial and specific, and this one it's about
ridding human beings of emotion, which at first that sounds
like kind of a placeholder themes, like oh yeah, okay,
but it actually leads to a couple of interesting dialogue scenes,

(04:26):
Like they go deeper with that theme than you would
expect for a movie of this sort.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah yeah, And I feel like I've always enjoyed those scenes,
Like this is a film that is sixty percent living
room dialogue scenes in which luckily they do get into
some of these topics. It's like thirty five percent driveways
and then some lab scenes and caves scene sprinkled to
fill out the rest of it. But it moves right along.
I feel like I always end up loving it when

(04:52):
I watch it. Yeah, and it at least bats around
some deeper concepts, even even if the same. At the
same time, you have to acknowledge that this is a
fast film. This is a cheap film. I think they
filmed it in five days. Like all of that taken
into account, it holds up really well.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
I agree, and I think the movie literally I think
actually the weakest element of it is the padding. I
think if you were to edit out about ten to
fifteen minutes of this movie, cut it down to like
a fifty to fifty five minute film, it would be
really solid. Like you just cut out a lot of
the driving and the three point turns, the dramatic three

(05:32):
point turns. I'm sorry, Roger, They're I'm not buying it.
That's not as great as you think it is.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, A lots of parking scenes and then
you know, anytime we're outdoors, I feel like it feels
like it's a thousand degrees like direct sunlight high noon.
It is not a technical masterpiece.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
Another one of the weak points. I would say, no
offense to him personally, nothing against Peter Graves, but Peter
graves performance in this movie I think is quite wooden.
He's like pressure treated pine in this But it's funny
because they put him opposite actors who I think for
a movie like this, are doing a fantastic job. We've
got Beverly Garland and Lea Van Cleef and they are

(06:14):
wonderful in this movie.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
Yeah, with Peter Graves, it's interesting because Peter Graves certainly
has a style, you know, and this is very much
a sort of teeth gritted square kind of performance. You know.
This is Peter Graves and he's here to play it
by the books. But at the same time, there I
think there are some very weird choices in his character

(06:40):
that I mean, I don't know what you would ask
God him to do, you know. So we'll get into
that when we get into the plot a bit more.
Because he ultimately his character is ultimately like the champion
of human emotion, and yet his character seems to have
only like maybe two emotions and makes some and engages
in some very cold blooded murder as the plot progresses.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
Yeah, he is the advocate for the benefits of emotion
as a motivating force for humans, and yet he doesn't
really display any. Levan Kleef is arguing against us having
emotions and is giving a quite passionate performance.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah, and is often in the throes of emotion, and
I guess it kind of works that regard like he
he understands the throes of emotion and sees how this
affects other people and has glimpse a path out of
that trap, where Peter Greve's character is more like emotion's
good must We've got to keep them. That's what makes
it special.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
Now I want to talk briefly about this movie's meta,
because there's an interesting contradiction here. I think, despite the
fact that this movie has a famously goofy looking monster,
when you actually get to it in the film, it
mostly shows up in the last three minutes or so, well, no,
a little bit before that, mostly in the last ten
minutes or so. When you see the monster, it is

(08:01):
not very convincing. It is not very scary, and in
fact is quite hilarious. But the exact same monster design
when rendered as an illustration gazing into your soul from
the movie poster rendering is awesome. I think that this
monster looks great on every poster I've seen for It

(08:21):
Conquered the World. In fact, I've got a poster for
this movie framed in my office because it's one of
my favorite fifties movie posters.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
It is indeed a terrific poster, and it's just a
testament to the craft that they can make it look
this good when nothing else in the movie really looks
this gay.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
But further regarding the meta, oh man, this has some
great taglines. So one of the posters, of course, it
has the title. It's got a screaming Beverly Garland. It's
got people being attacked by these sort of you know,
mind control bats. It's got the creature from Venus staring
into our souls with red eyes. But then it's got

(08:58):
some text on it. It says it conquered the world.
Every man, it's prisoner, every woman, its slave. See world
conquered by the horrible beast from beyond the stars. See
the hideous flying fingers of the monster. And then below that,
I think we see leaving Cleef with like his little
blow torch kind of oh monster, like it's looking in

(09:21):
the window of a house. But that doesn't ever happen
in the movie.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah, but certainly the monster the benefactor looks amazing here.
And yeah, I mean, I guess they couldn't really even
attempt to depict the monster carrying a woman though, because it,
as we see, it's so low to the ground. Yes,
how would that even work.

Speaker 3 (09:40):
Its arms are not long enough to carry a human body. Yeah,
well t rex arms, but they're mounted on the sides. Yes. No, wait,
hold on, I said that, but I take it back
because actually the weight it's drawn in the poster here,
it has short little arms, but in the movie it
does sort of reach out with its arms and really
grab around people. That's how Lee van Cleef bites it.

(10:02):
In the end. The monster just reaches up and grabs
him with the claw.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah, they kind of reach up, but not so much out.
It would still be hard to imagine this creature carrying
a woman. All right, we're not going to feature trailer
audio in this one, but instead, Joe, why don't you
just go ahead and recite the film's most famous monologue
for us here.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
Oh, you're putting me on the spot, but I guess
we should. We should do that near the beginning, because
this is another one of the most famous things about
the movie. I've already praised the script, so put that aside.
It is I think a pretty tight, kind of scrappy script,
it's got some interesting ideas. This ending monologue is atrocious.
Here's how it goes. He learned almost too late that

(10:44):
man is a feeling creature and because of it, the
greatest in the universe. He learned too late for himself
that men have to find their own way, to make
their own mistakes. There can't be any gift of perfection
from outside ourselves. And when men seeks perfection they find
only death, fire, loss, disillusionment, the end of everything that's

(11:07):
gone forward. Men have always sought an end to the
toil and misery, but it can't be given. It has
to be achieved. There is hope, but it has to
come from inside, from men himself. And I like to sometimes,
of course, it is Peter Graves who says this at
the end of the movie, and it's also a very bloated,

(11:27):
wooden kind of delivery. But I like to imagine this
monologue being given by David Huddleston as the Big Lebowski
and the Big Lebowski and it has to be achieved.

Speaker 1 (11:39):
Yeah, yeah, it would have taken. It would have had
a different energy certainly, But yeah, this is the ending monologue.
This is ultimately like the the thesis statement for the picture,
I guess, I.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
Guess so to defend what comes before this monologue, I
think the film makes these points without this hilarious speech
at the end.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yeah, just sort of like patting it out a little bit, maybe, yeah,
and trying to punctuate it.

Speaker 3 (12:04):
It's the verbal equivalent of another parking scene.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
All right. Well, if you want to watch it conquered
the World, you can certainly go out and do so.
As of this recording, this one isn't available as a
legit stream anywhere. You can find it if you look around,
but couldn't find it on any of the legit streaming platforms.
You're also hard pressed to get a DVD of it,
though there are some for sale and at reasonable prices

(12:30):
in some of the familiar websites, but I don't know
who is putting them out, so I don't know what
kind of releases these are. But there is not a
Blu ray release, And while famously featured in that nineteen
ninety one episode of MST three K, I don't think
this episode has ever been made available on disc. So
the rights for this film and a handful of other

(12:52):
AIP films, including the amazing Colossal Man, and I was
a teenage werewolf sadly seemed to be held up. It's
a shame, because it Conquered the World certainly deserves placement
in a proper physical release of Roger Corman's films.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
Yeah, I got confused because I have a couple of
different Corman box sets and this wasn't in either of them,
so I had to go elsewhere. But yeah, so this
has come up on the show before this. There's a
number of films on this list that are apparently being
held up by the same rights holder, And this came
up because we were wondering, why isn't the amazing Colossal

(13:28):
Man viewable at all? Really?

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, yeah, and this would seem to be the answer. So,
you know, these things tend not to last forever, so
you know, at some point in the future these films
will be released, they'll get some nice physical additions and
become available on streaming. But until that time, we're left
with what we can get.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
But I agree with your statement that It Conquered the
World belongs in any proper, you know, fifties Corman box set.
It's I would say it is up there with movies
like Not of This Earth, except a little bit flabbier.
There's a little more, you know, there's a little more
stuff you could cut out. Not if this Earth has
similar strengths, but I think is a little tighter.

Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, all right, Let's talk about the folks involved in
this production, starting at the top with someone we've talked
about in the show before, and that's Roger Corman, the
director and producer here who lived nineteen twenty six through
twenty twenty four. Corman was, of course, the Wizard of

(14:31):
B movies and a prolific creator of late fifties drive
in flicks. We've covered numerous Corman produced and or Corman
directed films on Weird House Cinema already, including sixty four's
Mask of the Red Death, which is probably among his
best work, as well as some of his many entertaining
low budget films like nineteen fifty seven's Not of This Earth.

(14:53):
Seth joined me on Weird House for an episode on
the nineteen fifty nine beat Nick horror comedy A Bucket
of Blood, and this is our first episode about a
Corman directed film since his death earlier this year at
the age of ninety eight.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
Though we may come back to Corman's Vincent Price Poe
Movies this October.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yes, so this was one of four Corman directed films
released in fifty six, but the only sci fi or
horror title. Swamp Woman, which also had Beverly Garland, was
a crime picture, and both Gunslinger with Beverly Garland and
The Oklahoma Woman with Peggy Castle were westerns. This was

(15:33):
the year before Attack of the Crab Monsters, and as
Michael Weldon points out in the Psychotronic Film Guide, this
was only Corman's second sci fi film, which is it's
always interesting to realize this sort of thing when we
think about Roger Corman, who's best remembered for so many
of these sci fi and or horror pictures, but he
also did a lot of westerns and other sorts of

(15:55):
flicks as well.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
It's hard to believe he only did four movies in
this year though, I mean, yeah, up the pace, Roger, Well.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
Those are just the director's credits. I didn't check production,
but yeah, he was ratchet it up. I think the
late fifties were really his key years of output. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
Was it fifty seven that he I want to say,
made either eight or eleven movies that year? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (16:19):
Yeah, I mean he would pump them out. I mean
even this film again shot in apparently five days, shot
in California, with key scenes taking place at Bronson Cave
in Griffith Park, which has come up time and time
again on the show a popular place in California to
shoot your otherworldly or just desolate scenes.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
In this movie, they say that the creature from Venus
is living there because the conditions inside mimic those on Venus.
I don't know about that.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
All right, Let's get into the writing here. Lou Roussoff
is credited with the screenplay He Lived nineteen eleven through
nineteen sixty three, screenwriter and producer, whose other credits include
fifty five Today The World Ended, fifty six is the
She Creature, sixty threes Beach Party, and sixty seven zon
Tar The Thing from Venus. I think that's kind of
a reworking of some of the same ideas here, and

(17:11):
his production credits include the US version and or US
release of nineteen sixties Black Sunday.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
You know, I was surprised when watching the credits this time,
and I noticed that the screenplay credit went to Rusoff
and not to who I assumed was the writer of
this movie, which is Charles B. Griffith. Charles B. Griffith
wrote Not of This Earth, wrote Attack of the Crab Monsters.
Was a common writer in the Corman scene of this time,
and was famous for being able to crank out a

(17:39):
script that was pretty witty and tight and quickly made.
He could make he could write him fast.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
Well, you know, he apparently did some work on the
script anyway. I see he's listed on IMDb as an
uncredited screenwriterskil so you know he got in there and
worked on it to some degree anyway. But indeed, you
think of Corman pictures from this area, you think of
Charles B. Griffith, who lived nineteen thirty through two thousand
and seven, you know, films like Not of This Earth,

(18:07):
Attack of the Crab Monsters, a Little Shop of hors
and Bucket of Blood. All right, let's get into the
cast here, and I'm gonna not go in billing order.
We'll reference the billing order, but we're gonna take it
by couple, because this film centers mostly around two married couples,
the Nelsons and the Andersons. Though I'd argue that it's

(18:28):
chiefly the story of the Andersons.

Speaker 3 (18:29):
That's where the real emotional meat is yes.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
All right, So let's start with the Nelsons here, starting
with doctor Paul Nelson, played by the top Build Peter Graves.
Graves Live nineteen twenty six through twenty ten, best known
to many for his long running hosting gig on A
and E's Biography, or at least for some of us.
I don't know if they're still rerunning episodes that Graves hosted,

(18:53):
but he was a longtime host on Biography, and of
course he had a long run on the original TV
series Mission Possible from sixty seven through seventy three. I
don't think I ever watched any of that, but I
do remember watching some of the late nineteen eighties reboot,
a reboot that I only recently learned resulted from a
Hollywood writers strike. The studio was like, well, we got

(19:15):
to make episodes of something, but we can't use writers.
And they realized, well, let's just go back and get
old Mission Impossible scripts that weren't filmed and just film
them in Australia, and that's what they did. That's where
this show came from. But I remember watching it and
digging it and getting very excited about a Nintendo game

(19:36):
titled Mission Impossible. That was some sort of tie in.
I think it was an official tie in, but also
just a legendarily difficult game. It's one of those Nintendo
games that I don't know if anyone ever beat this thing.
It was just so difficult, but also had some interesting
like stealth mechanics that seemed ahead of their time.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
I'm looking it up now. I never played this one.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
Yeah, and nothing in the game really matches up with
what you see in a Mission Impossible TV show, But
I don't know. I was excited for it at the time.

Speaker 3 (20:07):
That was common for video game tie ins to movies
and TV shows at the time. There's almost no resemblance
to the plot of the original thing.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yeah. So Graves was a US Air Force vet. He
was also, of course, the brother of James Arness Graves,
his stage name Arness we talked about in the past
because he was the Thing from Another World and graves
acting credits go back to the early fifties, including an
early starring sci fi role in fifty two's Red Planet Mars,

(20:37):
but he scored much more success when he appeared in
a supporting role in Billy Wilder Stalog seventeen in nineteen
fifty three. He was not nominated, but the film earned
AUSTAR nominations for two of its stars and its director.
Graves went on from here to have a long career
on TV and screen, appearing in the likes of fifty

(20:59):
four's Killers from Space, fifty five's The Night of the Hunter,
seventy nine. Yeah, yeah, The Night of the Hunter. Not
I think there was later a TV version that's different,
but yeah, he was in the picture. He was in
nineteen seventy nine. Is the Clonis Horror? Another MS two
three K favorite of many.

Speaker 3 (21:18):
Oh, is that the one about going to America?

Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yes, yeah, it's a you know, it's a dull person
movie about clones, but it's one that is I think,
kind of stupid, but also kind of great and has
been sort of re explored, we should say, I guess
with subsequent clone movies. Yes, he was, of course in
nineteen eighties Airplane. He was in ninety three's Adams Family

(21:43):
Values and nineteen ninety nine's House on Haunted Hill. I
think he kind of played himself in both of those,
like a TV presenter role. And he also pops up
in two thousand and two's Men in Black two.

Speaker 3 (21:54):
Now we've already talked a bit about the irony of
the casting here, where they have Peter Graves playing the
sort of the Earthling hero who stands up for human
emotions and yet is quite stiff and clenched in his performance.
But so he is, in a I think traditional interpretation,
the hero of the movie.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yes, yeah, yeah, he is, you know, and I guess
he has the look for it, right he plays. But
he's a space flight scientist. He runs the satellite command
center that I think is a government operation, or at
least it's protected by government forces.

Speaker 3 (22:30):
Yeah. So, I mean this is from the fifties, which remember,
like you know, we didn't really have our full space
program yet at the time, you know, the Apollo program
would until like nineteen sixty one. So they're imagining a
space program that is being run by the military. And so, yes,
Paul Nelson is. He's I think the creator of a

(22:53):
satellite that is sort of a first satellite in orbit
sort of thing. And he is also depicted as great
friends with Lee Van Cleeve's character, who will get to
in a minute.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
All right, So that's doctor Paul Nelson and doctor Paul
Nelson's wife is Joan Nelson, played by Sally Fraser, who
lived nineteen thirty two through twenty nineteen. I mean glamorous
b movie star of the nineteen fifties, whose credits include
another couple of notable genre pictures in the late fifties,
nineteen fifty eight's War of the Colossal Beast. Oh, actually

(23:24):
two more, Giant from the Unknown and The Spider.

Speaker 3 (23:28):
Hmmm, trying to think if I've seen any of those.
I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
I've seen War of the I think I've seen War
of Colossal Beasts, but I can never remember if that
is the film that comes before The Amazing Colossal Man
or after, because the films before and after The Amazing
Colossal Man featured the same makeup, this kind of like
scarred faced cyclops makeup, So I don't remember off the
top of my head.

Speaker 3 (23:50):
Here, I think The Amazing Colossal Man is the first one,
so War of the Colossal Beast has got to be
a sequel or a subsequent film.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, but there is. I think there is another Giant
Man picture in the in the mix there, just.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
Looks it up. Yeah, Colossal Man is fifty seven, War
of the Colossal Beast is fifty eight.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
And then what year is the Cyclops.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
Oh with Lon Cheney Junior. I think that that's fifty seven.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
Okay, yeah, that is the same makeup as War of
the Colossal.

Speaker 3 (24:18):
Beast I see. Okay, So Joan.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
Is Paul's loving wife. This is a very much supporting role,
but she gets to have some fun moments late in
the picture.

Speaker 3 (24:26):
Yeah, she has a wonderful Paul. I have a present
for you've seen yes, yeah, so arns out it's an
alien mind control device.

Speaker 1 (24:35):
All right, Let's move on to the Andersons here, starting
with doctor Tom Anderson, played by the legendary Lee van Kleef,
who lived nineteen twenty five through nineteen eighty nine. It's
old angelized himself. Now, Van Cleef's career would ultimately really
take off in the mid nineteen sixties. That's when Sergio
Leoni casts him in the Clint Eastwood Western for a

(24:57):
few dollars more, followed by a role as the villain
Angelies and sixty six is The Good, the Bad, and
the Ugly. And this just cemented him as a spaghetti
western superstar. And you know, before and after that too,
he appeared in tons of westerns. Like you look at
his filmography, it's really like mostly Westerns and some crime

(25:17):
pictures and that sort of thing. Director John Carpenter, of course,
grew up as a fan of all these westerns and
cast him as police Commissioner Bob Hawk in the nineteen
eighty one classic Escape from New York picture, where I
think Van Cleeve really shines. This is one of my
favorite supporting characters, I think, probably of all time, one

(25:38):
of those supporting characters that leaves you wanting more and
has some interesting hooks about where this character has been
and where they might be going, and you want to
know those stories. But of course the film doesn't take
us there. It just teases us with these possibilities.

Speaker 3 (25:52):
Yeah, and of course I love him. And The Good,
the Bad and the Ugly. The Good, the Bad, and
the Ugly is a movie of many villains. Two main
villains sort of alluded to in the title there. One
is played by Eli Wallach, who is the more humorous
and talkative of the sort of villainish characters with kind
of shifting loyalties. But Lee van Kleef's character is the

(26:14):
very straight, hard, bad, mysterious, serious villain.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
Nice. Now, at this point in levan Cleef's career fifty six,
he'd already had a few years experience in TV and film,
but with loads of credits as you often see, like
he was working a lot. Let's see, he'd made his
film debut in the Oscar winning western High Noon from
fifty two, and in fifty three he was in The
Beast from twenty Thousand Fathoms. He acted in again a

(26:41):
lot of westerns and crime projects throughout his filmography. But
one of the interesting things is that this film The
Beast from twenty Thousand Fathoms and Escape from New York
those are apparently the only three sci fi or horror
pictures that he ever did, though I believe he did
act in at least one sci fi TV series in
the early fifties, and he played a ninja on TV's

(27:05):
The Master in the mid eighties, but you know that
wasn't sci fi or horror, and so in this picture, yeah,
he is Anderson, a disgruntled physicist whose big ideas about
aliens have pushed him outside of the mainstream. But then,
of course the picture of centers around the fact that
he ends up making actual contact with an alien intelligence

(27:25):
from the planet Venus, and it places him in the
role of well, it could be Earth's savior or perhaps
it's destroyer for a lot of the picture, it depends
which side of the philosophical debate you're on.

Speaker 3 (27:38):
There are a lot of interesting things about the way
this character is written and the way Van Cleef plays him.
So the character is in some ways portrayed as a crank,
like he has these ideas that are not accepted by
other scientists or by the civil leadership, and they have

(27:59):
to do with aliens, of course, and nobody pays attention
to him. They're just like, ah, he's going off on
his favorite subject again, and this makes him embittered the
fact that nobody's paying attention to him, which I think
is pretty interesting because that is, you know, it almost
makes me think of when when sun Zoo came up
recently in our episodes about the Ninja, where you know,

(28:20):
he's talking about who to find within the enemy's ranks
to recruit to your side, to be it to be
a secret agent and betray the enemy. And one of
the things he says is look for someone who has
who feels they have been mistreated or unappreciated by enemy leadership,
someone who feels their genius is not being made use

(28:40):
of by the enemy.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
Yeah, yeah, that matches up.

Speaker 3 (28:43):
So he's portrayed as simultaneously like in some ways an
appreciated scientific genius, but also at the same time a
crying who people are, you know, dismissive of at least
with his ideas about aliens. But then he also, interestingly,
I would say, he plays this scientist character in a
way that's very texturally different than most scientist characters in

(29:08):
horror and sci fi movies of the fifties, who are
usually portrayed as very straight laced and with high social
class signifiers in the way they speak. Van Cleef's character
does not come off that way. He is playing a
physicist who has a more rough, aggressive and kind of

(29:29):
sounds like he has probably working class origins and and
speaks with a speaks with a distinctive voice, rather than
the kind of formal or character free way that a
lot of scientist characters in these movies talk.

Speaker 1 (29:44):
Yeah, yeah, you're right. He does stand out in that regard,
and it's interesting too, like his some of his ideas,
especially the ones we hear about early on, like you
know that they are actual ideas that are sometimes batted
around concerning the possibility of extraterrestrials, like the idea that
they're waking and that they might interfere if they didn't

(30:05):
like some development that was happening here. You know, like
some of these ideas, you know, they're they're not they're
not out of line with with some of the speculative
notions that are discussed regarding alien intelligence. Uh. And then
of course it ends up taking on this this higher
purpose that he sees, the idea that through contact with
aliens we can save ourselves. And of course this is

(30:27):
a common theme in ufology. And and then I guess
in some like serious contemplations on what first contact would
mean for humans, uh, you know, the possibility that it
could greatly improve life on Earth if we had outside
contacts something some other force that could help us fix
our problems.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
I don't know if we've talked about this recently, maybe
it's come up on the show before, but I noticed
a pretty strong tendency these days for beliefs about UFOs
and alien life to essentially merge with religious thinking, for
it to be actually not really separate propositions at all.
The like a lot of people who believe strongly in

(31:12):
UFOs and alien presence on earth these days, that belief
sort of edges into ideas about them being spiritual or
heavenly beings that are in some way going to save us.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
Yeah, yeah, it is. It is a common theme. I've
seen it in crystal shops too, and actual and ashual.
You'll have crystals for your christ consciousness, and then on
the next table you got crystals for aliens re exterrestrial.
I guess you can grab one of each, you know,
put one in each palm, mix them up, mix and match.

Speaker 3 (31:53):
Oh but Lee Van Cleef's character Tom Anderson, doctor Tom
Anderson here is the husband of Claire and who is
also a very interesting character in this movie, played by
Beverly Garland.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
Oh yes, Beverly Garland, who, to be clear, has second
billing in the picture. Even though we're discussing her fourth,
I want to stress that she did have second billing.
Her performance here is great. It's spirited, and she she
plays she doesn't just play like a damsel or some
character who's just kind of like, oh honey, I wish
you wouldn't betray humanity to the aliens.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
Like.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
She is supportive, like fiercely supportive, but she is also
very skeptical and she voices her skepticism and in the
end she's at she's more than willing to fight for
the man she loves and the planet she loves in
a really inspiring fashion like this is ultimately, especially for
this era, this is a pretty strong role and she
does a great job with it, like any she now.

(32:48):
To be clear, occasionally she has some some some maybe
not all about thought out lines she has to work with,
but even then, like Beverly Garland, gives it her all
and she makes those those lines live on the screen
when they should have been that they shouldn't have had
as much life to them.

Speaker 3 (33:05):
Well, that's the part where she's talking to Leaving Kleef.
They're in the middle of talking about aliens, by the way,
and she says something like I'll stay with you not
just because you're my husband, but because I love you.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
Yeah, lines like that. She usually fighting for her life
with lines like that that. She does a great job.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
Now, but yeah, she has to manage. I think a
difficult character here, who's like her motivations shift over the
course of the movies. She's always conflicted, but at the
beginning of the movie she's conflicted because she loves her husband,
but she thinks he's losing his mind. She thinks that
he is having delusions of contact with alien life. But

(33:45):
then when it becomes clear he is actually talking to
an alien and he was right all along and she
was wrong for doubting him. Then it shifts to her
realizing that his vindication is not a good thing because
it means that he actually partnering with this alien to
take over the planet and destroy everything that she holds sacred,

(34:06):
and so she makes a case to him. This movie
involves a lot of scenes of people just like laying
out an argument for why Earth should not be conquered,
and she does great in those scenes, like she sort
of brings things up to Lea VanClief about what this
alien conquest would mean for their family and their marriage,
and it's like things that he hadn't occurred to him before.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
Yeah, yeah, so again, love this performance. Beverly Garland lived
nineteen twenty six through two thousand and eight. She'd been
enacting in TV and films since I think nineteen forty
nine at this point, and It Conquered the World seems
to have led to a number of additional low budget
sci fi films. Though she'd also act in supporting roles

(34:50):
on bigger pictures and of course on TV. For instance,
I think at least at one point, most people would
be familiar with her from her role on TV's My
Three Sons, But she also appeared in such films as
fifty six's Caruku, Beast of the Amazon, Not at This
Earth in fifty seven, so we have discussed her on
the show before The Alligator People in fifty nine, Twice,

(35:12):
Told Tales in fifty three, Pretty Poison in sixty eight,
in Airports seventy five in seventy four?

Speaker 3 (35:19):
Is Alligator People a sci fi horror movie where like
a mad scientist is turning people into alligators and a swamp?

Speaker 1 (35:27):
Yep, that's the one, okay.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
I wonder if is that the movie that is being
referenced in the Rocky Ericsson song It's a Cold Night
for Alligators.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
I believe this is widely accepted, yes, okay, with as
much clarity as we can have regarding what Rocky's singing
about exactly in a number of these songs. But I
think that is often pointed too, is the reference point
for that awesome song.

Speaker 3 (35:52):
If you don't know what we're talking about, and you're
in the mood for some B movie themed rock and roll,
go listen to the Rocky Ericsson album The Evil One,
produced by Do Cook. Yeah, it has this song on it,
It's a Cold Night for Alligators, has the great line
the dogs choke on their barking when they see alligator
persons in the bog and fog.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
Oh. Yeah, great album, especially for October. Highly recommend putting
that one on.

Speaker 3 (36:15):
I've listened to this one so many times. It's a
personal favorite.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
All right. Getting into some of the bit performers here,
and we have to mention Dick Miller is in this
of course, legendary character actor and Corman mainstay who in
nineteen twenty eight through twenty nineteen, he plays Sergeant Neil here,
who I guess kind of he heads up the x
comm squad of soldiers who are going to help us
do battle with the aliens eventually, but mostly they just
wander through the woods.

Speaker 3 (36:39):
They're primarily comic relief. They wander around in the woods
that they stand guard at gates. They make wise cracks.
Dick Miller makes some very nineteen fifties like eh, my
wife jokes.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
Yeah, Yeah, there's a He has a lot of interaction
with the private Manuel Ortiz, who has been in this picture,
played by Jonathan Hayes More nineteen twenty nine American actor,
best known for his work in Corman films, especially Little
Shop of Mars, in which he played the main character Seymour.
He was also in fifty seven's Not of This Earth

(37:10):
and pops up in the nineteen eighty two wings Howser
film Vice Squad. This is a bit comedic role, and
I say not a shining moment in his filmography.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
N don't love it.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
And let's see who else we have. Oh, we have
Russ Bender here playing Bridgidier. General James Patrick he lived
nineteen ten through nineteen sixty nine. General, American B movie
actor often played these kind of like authority figures. He
was also in fifty seven's The Amazing Colossal Man and
fifty eight War of the Colossal Beast that plays a
different character in each.

Speaker 3 (37:41):
Now, Rob, I think we've got to talk about the
special effects here, especially the creation of the monster suit,
because I have read some behind the scenes accounts of
even the crew and cast at the time reacting with
disbelief at this monster. There's a famous story of Beverly
Garland being like that conquered the world.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yeah, yeah, the benefactor the monster here was designed and
monster suited by Paul Blasdell, who I've talked about on
the show before because he is responsible for some very
iconic monster designs from this time period, including it the
Terror from Beyond Space that we recently talked about on
the show that was great. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
He lived nineteen twenty seven through nineteen eighty three, responsible
for let's see, what are some of the other creatures,
the Beast with a Million Eyes and the Day the
World Ended from fifty five Not of this Earth, which
I thought those were pretty cool little saucer creatures in there,
Invasion of the Saucer Men Teenagers from Outer Space, which

(38:48):
has a great dog zapping scene in it where the
one of the alien zaps a dog and turns it
to bones. So you know, he's involved in a lot
of stuff in his designs. Have they have a signature
look to them, which is great and has and is
you know, kind of worshiped by people who love nineteen
fifties B movies, like they're model kits of the monster

(39:09):
from this picture. But at the end of the day,
it is also ineffective. Is it is a goofy looking
monster that does not inspire terror, that is it great
pains to convincingly interact with human actors. It just ultimately
falls flat. But you can't help but love it at

(39:31):
the same time.

Speaker 3 (39:32):
It's like, I, how did I actually think it is
a kind of great design if you were just going
to say, focus on the face and the shape of
it and render it as an illustration or something. And
that's why I think it works quite well on the
movie poster. It just doesn't work as a physically embodied

(39:53):
prop moving and interacting with actors.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
Yeah, it looks and I'm not the first to make
some some of these comparisons to it, but it looks
like the mascot the demonic mascot for an artichoke Heart company, Like,
it looks like a big artichoke heart with tentacles or
tentacle arm clawed arm things. And it apparently at one
point it didn't have that conical head. It was like

(40:18):
flat because they were like, well it's Venus and they're
headed in their minds. Well, it would be crushed flat
by the gravity. I don't know, we know that's that
wouldn't exactly be the case it was crushed, it would
be by the atmosphere. But at any rate, they put
it on set and they realized, no, this thing's way
too short. We've got to make it taller. So let's
just make its head like an inverted ice cream cone.

(40:39):
And that's what they did.

Speaker 3 (40:40):
I think that I've read that the cast were comparing
it to an ice cream cone on the set because
it's got a conical head, no body, and arms coming
out of the side of its head. There's a great
part in the movie where it's it's got sort of
a little like, you know, a round skirt around the
bottom of it, and it starts just sort of pooping
out these little bat that fly away the mind control bats.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (41:04):
But as you said, artichoke, I've always thought of it
as an art to choke. It is an art to
choke from hell.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
If you look up images of the original costume, it
uh it was apparently read. Its name on set was Beulah.
I believe Paul Blastell called it as such himself. Oftentimes
these monster effects have like little pet names behind the scenes,
and this was Beulah. And uh, yeah, I mean it.

(41:32):
It it's it's a it's a terrible and amazing design
at the same time, it's like it's it has stood
the test of time. People love it, and it looks evil,
it looks like it's up to no good. Yes, yeah,
And I don't want to be too hard on it.
There are maybe a couple of scenes with it that
that do resonate, and it's its interactions to the human

(41:53):
actors are not entirely unconvincing, but clearly it needed a
lot of help.

Speaker 3 (41:59):
Well, it's one of those things where you know the
scene in ed Wood where Bella Legosi is being attacked
by the octopus, but they don't have the motor to
make its arms move, so he's got to kind of
throw the arms around himself. There's a similar thing happening
in this movie where it can't really be made to
in a perspective shot, be made to attack people, so

(42:24):
instead we see people leaping into its claws.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
Yeah, like you run at it, sort of skid into
its claws and then go flat. And like there's one
scene in particular where the stunt person or actor doing
this like really goes for it, really eats it and
makes it look good. And I was like, yeah, all right,
it's looking alive now. But like again, it takes a
lot of help for this thing to look even halfway

(42:49):
believable on the screen.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
Like for the people who get mulled by it are
essentially like a puppy running up to somebody for a hug.

Speaker 1 (42:56):
Yeah. At the same time, I will acknowledge that part
of the plot is that the thing can't move around
all that well and it's kind of like isolated, so
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
Yeah, that's sort of a revelation, right, Like Lee van
Kleef is all about, Oh, it's super powerful, it's perfect,
it can do anything. But Beverly Garland is like, wait
a minute, but it can't leave this cave and it's
like stuck theirs and it needs people to do its
dirty work. That makes it sound like it's not as
powerful as you think. And she's got a point. Yeah,
maybe it's supposed to look somewhat awkward and unable to

(43:33):
act very effectively within Earth's atmosphere because it's not from
here and it needs people to do its job for it.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
Yeah, but it is highly intelligent and highly manipulative, as
we'll get into all right. One final note on the
music for this picture, though the music is nothing really remarkable,
But the music is credited to Ronald Stein, who lived
nineteen thirty through nineteen eighty eight, composer who worked on
a lot of low budget films, particularly for American international pictures,
the likes of Not of This Earth, The Attack of

(44:00):
the Crab, Monster's Queen of Blood, Dementia thirteen, and more,
including The Rain People, Francis Ford Coppola's picture prior to
the Godfather.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
I didn't really notice much about the music itself one
of the so the music wasn't bad, it wasn't great.
But one thing I did notice that was quite funny
was the pairing of certain pieces of music with what
was happening on the screen. Rob did you notice that
some of the most dramatic music in the movie was, like,

(44:29):
while we were watching Peter Graves do a three point
turn in a truck.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
I did. I don't think I really made note of that,
But I always think when I think music in this
I think about the musical stinger to the monologue where
he finishes the monologue and then you hear bomb bomb,
bomb bomb, or something to that effect, you know, just
really just punctuating the whole message.

Speaker 3 (44:52):
Yeah, I agree, with that up. But it is funny
getting the like the real like the strings are ascending
as they're literally somebody coming out of itway.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
Yeah, there are whole scenes in this film boere it's like, well,
I drove up all the way, now I've got to
go back, so I'll go back.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
Yeah, let me turn around, go back down this winding road.
We sell people go up these s curves. I don't know,
like five or six times.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
Yeah, all right, well let's get into the plot of
it Conquered the World.

Speaker 3 (45:29):
Okay, Well, the action begins with a bunch of scientists
in a lab at what I think is an air
force base. It's a military installation of some kind. You
got technicians in white coats, electronic equipment beeping all over
the place, these big view screens on the walls, and
radar pinging with contacts from the sky. And here in
command of all this is doctor Paul Nelson. That's again

(45:52):
Peter Graves. The people in this lab are preparing for
a satellite launch. And note that this movie was released
in nineteen fifty six, which was a year before the
Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first ever artificial satellite to
achieve orbit. So what is being depicted here was at
the time pure science fiction. Humans had not yet at

(46:14):
the time of this movie put a satellite into orbit.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
Yeah, it's always fun to sort of put these in
the perspective of where we actually were with the space
exploration at the time.

Speaker 3 (46:24):
Yeah. Yeah, So some of the chatter between the scientists
in the room reveals that the satellite program costs nine
million dollars. Wow, and it is at moderate risk of
crashing into an unrelated airplane during a liftoff. They're like, oh,
I better get that plane out of the way. Peter Graves,

(46:44):
he's got sort of corny, overwrought moments pretty much immediately,
Like in this very first scene, one of the technicians says,
you know, all systems are ago, and Graves looks almost
directly into the camera and says, then man is finally
ready to move into space.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
But these lines are perfect for Graves. Yeah, they're they're
over the top, but like man, he delivers them like
few others.

Speaker 3 (47:10):
Well, I can just imagine, like, you know, Joan, his
wife bakes him a macaroni and cheese TV dinner and
sets it down in front of him, and he looks
up and says, men is finally ready to achieve sustenance.
So from here we go into a general's office to
meet our next main character, Tom Anderson. That's leave Enkleef.

(47:32):
And in this scene we learned that Tom Anderson is
a highly accomplished and respected physicist with quote every degree imaginable,
So I guess that means he also has an MBA,
he's got a you know, an accounting degree, all that stuff.
He once worked on something called the perpetual missile project.
I was trying to imagine what could that mean? A

(47:53):
missile that is a missile that lasts forever.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
What I don't know. My best guess is that it
is maybe something like the supersonic low altitude missile or
SLAM concept in the mid fifties, or just pure technobabble
like it could be. It could be.

Speaker 3 (48:07):
Either perpetual missile, but anyway, we discover that Tom has
lately developed some fringe ideas that are a cause for
concern to the military leadership and to his colleagues. This
has led to a sort of career exile. The way
he explains it, Van Cleef says, there are a lot
of fat heads who are not ready to hear the truth,

(48:31):
and you know, it's classic crank behavior. People don't accept
my ideas because they are stupid and wicked and want
to hide the truth. Which, you know, it's funny. I
understand exactly why this is, because it makes for a
better storytelling dynamic. But it is kind of unfortunate that
most of the time in the movies the people who
act like this are proven right. Yeah, yeah, but anyway,

(48:54):
so Van Kleef, he's imploring the General to call off
the satellite project before it launches. Well, it seems that
a smaller satellite that the space program tried to launch
some time ago exploded before it reached orbit, and Anderson
says that this was no mere accident. It was a
warning from someone out there. Other planets in our Solar

(49:16):
system are watching us closely every minute of every day
to make sure that we don't put anything into space,
because if we do, that means we're a threat to them,
and if we're a threat to them, they may choose
to destroy us. So for the sake of all humankind,
we've got to stop this whole project.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
Yeah, And as I alluded to earlier, this is not
a crazy concept in and of itself. In the nineteen eighties,
for example, cosmologist Edward Harrison argued that the first life
form to achieve a certain level of interstellar technology, at
least within certain distances, because of course the universe is
so vast, but the first civilization to achieve a certain

(49:56):
level of interstellar technology would essentially become a super predator
intent on preventing other civilizations from advancing sufficiently in their technology,
you know, because it's like, well, we have achieved it.
Anybody else achieving it, they could be as bad as
us or worse. So we've got to prevent them. We've
got to blow out their satellites, we've got to interfere

(50:17):
with their launches. This is also a concept that is
explored in the three body problem.

Speaker 3 (50:22):
Yeah. Yeah, Do you want to make a sound in
a dark forest if you don't know what else is
out there? And the idea that there's sort of a
game theory logic at work within the dark forest, where
it's in anybody's interest there to destroy anything else that
makes a sound. Yeah, But in this case, the general
is not dissuaded. He ignores Anderson's warnings, and the satellite

(50:43):
launches into space. Now the movie, as we've said, does
not have a lot of visual excitement. But here there
is some good use of downward facing blast off footage
stock footage, I assume, but I don't really know what
it would be from. I think that's kind of interesting.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
Yeah, this is not one like there are certain bits
of stock footage you see a lot in movies from
this period, or you feel like you've seen some repetition,
and that might just be similarity between different bits of footage.
But yeah, this one felt new to me.

Speaker 3 (51:10):
Anyway. We cut from here to a dinner party three
months later, so we're told some time has passed and
here there are four characters, so we have Tom Anderson.
This leave Kleef and his wife Claire played by Beverly Garland,
and they are hosting at their house Paul Nelson as
Peter Graves and his wife Joan played by Sally Fraser.

(51:30):
And so this is where we learn that Paul and
Tom are actually good buddies. I don't know exactly how
far back they go, but they've been friends for a while.
Apparently they have a tendency to geek out about rocket
science at the dinner table, and Joan has to beg
them to stop talking about conical graduations, and there is
in the scene something. There's kind of a tension because

(51:52):
there is clearly something Tom wants to bring up with Paul,
but Claire is distressed. She is like, please, do not
start talking about this in front of company. They're going
to think you're insane. So whatever it is, it's something
he's been champing at the bit to talk about, and
she does not want him to bring.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
Up did we see what they were eating? I can't.
I don't recall how they finished eating or hadn't started
eating yet, and we're just doing drinks. There are a
lot of drinks in this movie.

Speaker 3 (52:17):
They're talking about a pie, I think because Beverly Garland
makes that quip. Somebody's like, ooh, this pie is so good.
Did you make it? And Beverly Garland says, oh, yeah,
it's an old family recipe that my grandmother sold to
the bakery. So anyway, Tom's not going to be able
to resist sharing whatever it is he's not supposed to

(52:37):
be talking about. So Tom takes Paul from the dining
room into the living room and he pulls back a
curtain to reveal this huge recess in the wall. Which
is full of radio and stereo equipment, and then Tom
tunes into some kind of signal on the dial which
plays through the speakers. It is an eerie, hollow, humming sound,

(52:58):
and Tom asks, Paul, do you have any idea what
you're listening to. Paul is flippant, He's like, is it
the London Philharmonic? But Tom says no, it's Venus. And
so at first Paul is like, oh, okay, so you're
saying we're bouncing signals off of Venus or something, or
maybe it's radiating impulses, geomagnetically or something. And Tom says, no, no, no,

(53:22):
I don't mean the static. Can't you hear it the
other thing? Listen to the voice. Listen to the voice, Paul.
But Paul does not initially hear anything, and we don't
hear it. To be clear, we don't hear an explicit
voice either. We just hear the humming.

Speaker 1 (53:38):
Yeah, it's I guess it's to leave a little room
open for the possibility early in the picture that he
isn't hearing anybody that this is some unhinged behavior here
or hallucination or something. Yes, but it also I have
to it's also kind of similar to say, anytime a
character has a conversation with a Wookie or a droid

(53:58):
in the Star Wars universe, you know where it's like,
we don't understand what's being said, that there's some sort
of conversation going on here.

Speaker 3 (54:05):
Yeah where. When these conversations happen later in the movie,
Tom will often have to like repeat back what he
has just heard from the other side. So it's those
classic Wookie conversations. Yeah, what do you mean the hyperdrives broken? Yeah. Anyway,
while they're listening to the humming trying to hear the voice,
the phone rings. It's for Paul. It's the Rocket Lab.
They inform him that just this very moment, the satellite

(54:28):
that they put into orbit three months ago has disappeared.
It darted out of its orbit and off into space.
So Paul and Joan have to leave Claire and Tom's
house in a hurry so Paul can deal with the satellite.
And as they're going out and getting into the car
to drive away, Joan says, I've always thought Tom was
a little off tonight, he went too far. So anyway,

(54:48):
they drive to the installation, but by the time they
get there, the satellite is already back wherever it went.
That was pretty quick, and Paul decides they're going to
have to bring the satellite down for an inspection. Is
that a thing in reality? It satellites? I don't know
about that.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
Yeah, yeah, this is again it's a moment where we
have to remind ourselves that the thing that they are
depicting is near future science fiction and reality went a
slightly different way with all of this.

Speaker 3 (55:15):
Yeah. So, meanwhile, back at Tom and Claire's house, Claire
is walking around fiddling with things nervously. She's in a
state of anxiety. She is obviously unhappy that Tom started
talking about the messages from Venus, even though he promised
her that he wouldn't. So Tom goes to his covert
Venus radio and he tunes in, but then, to our shock,

(55:38):
he begins speaking to someone. Now, once again, we don't
hear a voice on the other side. We just hear
the spooky humming. It kind of oscillates at different frequencies.
But Tom hears something because he responds to what the
presence says. He says, this is Anderson Acknowledge. Where are you? Yes, yes,
it's true. I am your only friend. Nobody else even

(55:58):
knows you exist, but they will, and it will be
the greatest day in the history of mankind. Now, at
some point in this conversation, Beverly Garland comes out of
the bedroom in like a big puffy nightgown with a caller.
I love these old movie nightgowns. So she asked Tom
to come to bed, but he is not ready. He says,
he's here, darling. He drew the satellite to his world,

(56:19):
to Venus, and now he's back. Within an hour, he's
in the circling laboratory, just waiting to come down to
us to save us. And Claire is obviously disturbed. She
thinks he's going mad. But Tom is just a big
ball of excitement. He says he's finally proven right. All
of his theories about alien observers from other planets in

(56:40):
the Solar System, they were all correct. He was right
all along. But while in the past he didn't know
if their intentions would be good or evil, he now
knows that they're good. That this intelligence from Venus has
returned with the goal of helping our planet to ascend
and thrive. So later Tom falls asleep on the couch
by his radio kit and Claire comes out and lays

(57:03):
a blanket over him, and it's a tender moment because
she is frightened and bewildered by his behavior, but she
still loves him and she wants him to be Well.

Speaker 1 (57:12):
Yeah, it is a nice little scene.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
So the next day there's a scene where the scientists
are bringing down the satellite and it is not responding
to their remote controls the way it's supposed to. It
eventually crashes somewhere near the base. In some ways, I
think this is supposed to be one of the quote
exciting scenes. It's creating a type of suspense what's going
to happen to the satellite? I don't think it works
super well. I think they could have trimmed stuff.

Speaker 1 (57:36):
Like this, not that there's a lot of space to trim.

Speaker 3 (57:40):
Yeah, well this could have gone in the pile with
all of the parking scenes and the driving scene, yeah
that stuff.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
Then you risk cutting it down to like a nice,
lean forty minutes.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
Well yeah, but as we were saying earlier, I mean
I think this movie could work as a good, like
forty five minute you know, philosophical sci fi story.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
Yeah, like basically like an Outer Limits episode. Yea, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:01):
So Tom learns from his radio that the presence from
Venus survived the crash and is now hiding in the
mountains about ten miles south of the installation. And here
we get our very first glimpse of the alien, moving
slowly through the thick brush of a forest. We do
not see its whole body. We see the conical tip
of its head with some little antennae poking out, and

(58:23):
then it stops and reaches up and waves these clawed
hands around. This part is already pretty funny.

Speaker 1 (58:29):
Yeah, it's probably a bad sign when you're doing the
right thing, you're not showing your full monster. And it's
already ridiculous because we've talked about other films where at
least the first like in Mortal Kombat, the first little
glimpse you get a goro, it worked really well. Yes,
it's only as you reveal more that the problems become obvious. Here,
it's a little hilarious from the get go.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
Oh you know what, I realized the static design of
the monster face and it conquered the world is basically
in the same zone as the gore punched in the
groin face. Yeah, yeah, okay, anyway, Next we get a
montage of all machinery coming to a halt. There's some

(59:12):
clever use of stock footage played in reverse here to
achieve a stopping effect on things like So, the idea
is the alien has managed to shut off every machine
in the area. I think I saw some plot summary
that said it managed to stop every machine in the
whole world. I don't recall if they actually say that
in the movie. I don't think they do well.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
The title of the movie is it conquered the world,
And there's maybe like some brief mention of that, but
the whole film feels very regional.

Speaker 3 (59:41):
Yes, the action is quite local. Yeah, so I don't
know whatever's going on far away, at least within this
town around the military installation, all machines stop, and that's
all machines of every kind, electrical gas combustion, All the
cars come to a stop in the road. We see
airplanes falling out of the sky, a train stops, We
see I think a printing press stop printing, and it

(01:00:03):
even stops just purely mechanical machines like Jones wind up
watch stops working.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
This is like the same level of logic that you
get in maximum overdrive, where whatever is controlling all the
machines controls everything from like a high tech vehicle to
a toaster. Yeah. Like, whatever the alien is doing, it
can stop a power plant, it can stop a wristwatch,
presumably like the drinking birds are no longer working in town.

Speaker 3 (01:00:33):
Yeah that's right, it stops dipping.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Yeah, wind up toys are totally non functional.

Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
Yeah, that monkey is not clapping symbols anymore. So that's
phase one of the takeover plan. Turn off all the
machines begin phase two. Tom is on the radio with
an alien. Now why does this radio still work? Because
the alien can specifically target certain machines to still function.
They're the machines that belong to the al allies, and

(01:01:01):
right now I think Tom is the only ally and
Tom and Claire's household, so their stuff still works.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Which again speaks to this being a very local invasion. Yes,
maybe like maybe limited to a single California county. Yes,
maybe not even municipal regions yet.

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
So Tom's on the radio with the alien and he's
reading off a list that he has created of control personnel.
This includes the mayor of the town, the chief of police,
the commander of the Air Force base, and also his
friend Paul Nelson. They say that these four men, along
with their wives, will be the targets of the eight
control devices that the Presence has brought with them from Venus,

(01:01:44):
and it will take time on the on the scale
of weeks to create more control devices. So this is
all they've got right now. And then in a hilarious cutaway,
we see these little minoc type creatures, nasty little winged
beasts scooting out from under the alien's costume and flying away.
Now Here we begin a number of scenes that are

(01:02:05):
the mind control attacks. So these flying creatures, they spread
out all over the place, They swoop down on their targets,
latch briefly onto the back of the neck. And then
once they do and it only takes a few seconds,
the target is fully obedient to the will of the
benefactor from Venus. I think, in a seemingly psychic sense,
like they automatically into it their orders. They don't have

(01:02:28):
to check in via radio like Tom does.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
I guess there are a few moments in the in
the plot though, where you're like, well, maybe it's not
instant communication. Maybe they get like an update every few hours.
I don't know, yeah, but I'm going to try not
to be too pedantic about it. Overall, pretty cool little
mind control concept, I guess, yes.

Speaker 3 (01:02:50):
And then once they bite you and mind control you,
they just fall off and die immediately. They say, it's
like a bee sting.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
Yeah, kind of like the face hugger you know.

Speaker 3 (01:03:00):
Yes, yeah. Now we learn that in this early phase
of the plan, they're targeting these key leadership figures in
the immediate vicinity of the crash site set where the
satellite came down. But ultimately we learn that the way

(01:03:23):
the being from Venus intends to help or save humanity
is by subjecting all of us to a mind altering
procedure which will leave us with no emotions, only logic,
and Tom explains that the rationale here emotions are the
source of everything bad in human society, all war, hate, stupidity,

(01:03:46):
unnecessary strife. This purging of emotions will purge human kind
of these evils and elevate us to a state of
utopian rationality. Now, ultimately this plan comes under some serious
interrogation by various characters in later scenes. But I first
wanted to ask, so this is Tom's understanding of the

(01:04:09):
alien's plan. We hear it explained in Tom's words, what
the alien is going to do purge us of emotions
and elevate us to you know, to a better existence.
But I had a serious question do we ever find
out if the alien itself actually believes this? Like, from
the alien's perspective, is it really trying to help us

(01:04:29):
at least what it would consider help, Or in the
alien's own mind, is this just a mission of conquest
and exploitation and the emotion purging utopia story is a
way of manipulating Tom into helping it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
Yeah, I don't know. There are various ways to sort
of interpret this because on one level, I was thinking
earlier about the earlier satellites that had failed gone missing,
and Anderson's theory that this was due to alien interference.
Perhaps those were different aliens, you know, the idea that

(01:05:04):
there are different intelligence is in the Solar System that
don't want Earth to advance too much. But then you
have a few bad players on Venus who realize, actually
we can we can make this work for us. We
need to get off Venus. We would love to manipulate
these people and make them work for us, conquering their world.

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
Because later we do learn that these creatures from Venus,
they have severe limitations in their own environment, Like we
sort of get the idea that Venus is lacking in
the resources they need to achieve their ultimate goals.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
Yeah, and it's also later discussed that the Venusians themselves
lack emotion. Ye, and but but that at the same
time we've seen this creature's face. Its face is clearly evil,
it's full of emotion. So I don't know, the message
is a little skewed here, Like is it evil and
I'm looking to manipulate our desire for betterment and Anderson's desire

(01:06:06):
for human advancement? Or is this all just perfectly logical
to it? Like of course I'm going to you know,
take over key leaders and overthrow the government because these
are all necessary logical steps that need to take place
in order to ring about this new utopia. We don't
really know. It's kind of the movie seems to have
it both ways.

Speaker 3 (01:06:25):
Yeah. Yeah, So I've got my own thoughts about the
sort of emotion logic divide here that we can get
into after we talk about some of the scenes where
they discuss this, but before before we get to that,
in the middle of the movie, there are a lot
of scenes of like Paul riding around on a bicycle
to different locations trying to figure out what's going on.
Paul sort of slowly gets wise to the fact that

(01:06:47):
something is really wrong. But I had a question. If
a wind up watch stops working, why would a bicycle work?

Speaker 1 (01:06:56):
Yeah, yeah, exactly because it's It's likewise the same question
with maximum overdrive. Did the bicycles take off? And if
they didn't, why not? Why is the bicycle immune to
being maximum overdrived?

Speaker 3 (01:07:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:07:10):
Or maximum overdriven if you will. I'm not sure which
term is preferred.

Speaker 3 (01:07:14):
Yeah, I don't know the answer to that. But anyway,
so in this middle, I'd say a big part of
the middle of the movie is characters such as Tom's
wife Claire and Paul becoming convinced that Tom is not
hallucinating and that the plans of the benefactor from Venus
are real. And so this leads to scenes where these

(01:07:37):
characters are trying to talk since into Tom.

Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
And these scenes are really the meat of the movie. Yeah,
And I say that in a good way because they're
generally entertaining scenes.

Speaker 3 (01:07:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
If they weren't, the entire film would be a watch.

Speaker 3 (01:07:50):
Yeah. So there's one scene between Tom and Claire that's
Leevancleeve from Beverly Garland, and he's trying to sell her
on the benefits of being part of the aliens plan
and purging all emotion. But she's like, if we have
no emotion, will we won't we have no love for
one another? And Tom is he's not dissuaded, but it

(01:08:11):
seems like he doesn't really have a very good answer
for this. He says something like, well, even if there
are no emotions, I'll still need you. But Claire presses
him on this. She's like, okay, but if you need
me but you don't love me, what does that mean? Like,
so would I just basically work for you? And it
seems that this kind of gets through. Tom doesn't really

(01:08:32):
have a good answer, but he just kind of like
is like, well, I can't think about that right now.

Speaker 1 (01:08:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:08:37):
Somewhere also in here, we've got the I've Got a
Present for you scene, which is great but also a
huge WTF scene.

Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
Yeah, because earlier we get a scene where Paul leaves
Joan to go off on one of his bike rides
to try and figure out the mystery, and he's like,
don't you know, don't leave the window open, make sure
you're inside, and like the door's open for a second,
and we get and like one of the flying bat
creatures swoops in and we presume that it gets her.

Speaker 3 (01:09:05):
Yes, So Paul comes home and Joan is in. She's
very much in Stepford wife mode. She's like, honey, welcome home.
I love you. I have a present for you. Why
don't you sit down right there and I'll show you,
you know, show you what I'm holding behind my back.
And of course, what do you know. It's a mind
control bat. Beautiful, thank you, thank you, Happy birthday. She

(01:09:28):
releases it and she's while it's attacking Paul. She's like,
I'm gonna go out for a walk. I'll be back
when you're feeling better. And so she goes out for
a walk, but Paul bests the mind control bat. He
kills it with a fire poker.

Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
And I rather like the scene where he kills it
with the fire poker. It had some some oomph to it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:47):
Yeah, yeah, it's good. And then when she comes back,
she thinks he has been turned. So these the people
who have been turned by the mind control devices are
not like omnipotent, like they don't fully understand and everything.
So I guess that comes back somewhat of my guess
about them being sort of psychic. She doesn't know he

(01:10:07):
hasn't been turned. He's faking it, and he's like, will
we ever go back to how we were? And she
says no, the change is irreversible, and then Paul shoots
her yes, what yes, Like what if she was wrong
about the fact that they couldn't go back?

Speaker 1 (01:10:24):
Yeah? Yeah, what if there was some sort of cure?
So many questions here, So yeah, this is like really shocking.
I mean, I think part of it is most of
us at this point we've seen enough vampire and zombie
films to be very well acquainted with the My beloved
is no longer my beloved. They're a monster now I'm
going to have to kill them, seeing you know, yeah,
he usually comes with a great deal of emotional anguish,

(01:10:47):
and sometimes, you know, it's it's the individual facing this
choice can't do it, you know, like their emotions are
too strong. They're like, I know you're a zombie now,
but I can't kill you. I'm gonna have to lock
you in the basement instead.

Speaker 3 (01:11:01):
That sort of thing, And most of the time in
those scenes there's like a lot of also just esthetic
work being done to fully convince you like it's not
the person anymore. They are not in there. It's a
different it's just their body being controlled by a demonic
entity or.

Speaker 1 (01:11:16):
So, yeah, they wanted. They have to drive home a
very black and white scenario, while also driving home that
this is a terrible choice it is having to be made. Yes,
But Paul does not hesitate. He just shoots her down
in cold blood, then presumably has a smoke and finishes
reading the newspaper. I don't know the Yeah, there's no
exploration of the parameters here, no consideration of how much
of her is truly in there anymore. And it's even

(01:11:39):
weirder when you drag in the whole sort of like
cold War anxiety aspects of this film, because it's kind
of like, no, sir, I found out my wife was
a secret Communist, and I did what any red blooded
American would do, and it just comes off like darn.
But Paul is a cold guy. Again. This is our
champion of emotion in the film, and he shows very

(01:12:03):
little emotion in making this fatal choice.

Speaker 3 (01:12:06):
Yeah, that's right. So that is a real tension and
how these themes are realized within the movie because of
how cold Paul is. But so later we get these
scenes where Tom and Paul are themselves arguing about the
plans of the benefactor from Venus. Paul is convinced basically
of what's going on. He goes to talk to Tom

(01:12:28):
about the merits of the plan. I think there are various.
They're planning to kill each other also in these scenes,
because Tom has received orders from the alien that he
has to kill Paul. I think Paul has plans of
his own. But they're arguing it out, and so we
get some speeches. One thing is that Tom says, you know,
first of all, he tries to convince Paul to join him.

(01:12:48):
He's like, he wants you on his side, next to me.
He wants you so like, you know, come be, Come
be the lieutenant of the Venus invasion plan. And Paul says,
you want me to condone this reign of terror, to
swear allegiance to this monstrous king of yours, to kill
my own soul and all within reach. Well I won't, Anderson,
I'll fight it till the last of breath in my body,

(01:13:10):
and I'll fight you too, because you're part of it,
the worst part, because you belong to a living race,
not a dying one. This is your land, your world.
Your hands are human, but your mind is enemy. You're
a trader, Anderson, the greatest trader of all time. And
you know why, because you're not betraying part of mankind,
you're betraying all of it. That's a Peter Grave speech.

Speaker 1 (01:13:33):
That's pretty great. I mean, and you know, I have
to say, I'm glad they're doing this in person, because
if this film we're set today, this whole conversation would
take place on Facebook and it would just be super awful,
and half of it would be in names. Half of
it would be memes. You know.

Speaker 3 (01:13:48):
Yeah, it's a comment. It's got a lot of little
the mad Face emoji reactions. Yeah. So he makes the
case that he's being a trader. But they also have
a conversation where Paul explains why the why he thinks
that the emotion purging plan won't work. He's like, I
think Earth is actually going to defeat these, you know,

(01:14:09):
these supposedly purely logical mind controlled beings from Venus, because
he says, for example, humans will feel emotional solidarity for
one another, and their emotions will cause them to cooperate
together and to sacrifice their own personal interests in you know,

(01:14:30):
in the interest of better protecting humanity as a whole.
So they can coordinate and cooperate and make sacrifices in
a way that these purely logical, rational, individualistic beings controlled
by the aliens will not. Now I sort of get
what they're going for there. I don't know if that's
exactly the way I would frame it, but I think

(01:14:51):
it raises a lot of interesting questions. I think the
way I would think about it more is that the
way Tom is thinking about logic versus emotion is just
a little bit miscalibrated as to the roles these things
actually play in how we act. Like, logic is a
good way of formulating plans of action, right, It's better

(01:15:14):
to think logically about what to do than to just
act emotionally to try to figure out what you should do.
But emotions generate all of the motivation states for action.
So if you have a very logical plan about how
to achieve a goal, the way you decide what your
goal is is usually emotion like you have emotional motivations

(01:15:36):
that tell you what you want and what you think
is good, and then you have logic to help you
decide best how to achieve that thing.

Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
Yeah, and of course logic can be flawed. Logic can
lead to incorrect answers, Like, it's interesting to think about
Anderson here, like he has been he has followed a
path that is both logical and emotional to reach this
point where he risks dooming the planet. You know, yes,
so yeah, it is hard to sort of tease tease

(01:16:04):
these apart. You know, you get into the whole vulcan
territory right of trying to figure out what what a
what a people would be like if they purge themselves
of emotion and and followed pure logic. You know, what
what would that look like and what would be what
kind of pitfalls would still be possible.

Speaker 3 (01:16:21):
But there's a great twist here because in one of
these scenes where Paul comes over and he's arguing with
Tom about what they should do, Claire actually sneaks out,
like she she comes to hate this alien presence and
she's like, you know what, I'm going to deal with
this issue myself. So Beverly Garland steals Tom's rifle that

(01:16:42):
he was going to use to kill Paul and then
goes and gets in the car and drives away to
find the alien and she at one point she I think,
gets on the radio and says like I'm coming for you.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:16:54):
Yeah, And I love this. Like Claire, she she gets
in the car, arms herself, gets in the car and
goes to find the cave where the alien lives, and
she's like, I'm gonna destroy it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
She's a woman of action, and Beverly Garland really brings
a lot of energy to this role. Is great in
this role, so like this alone is a is a
breath of fresh air for movies of this time period.

Speaker 3 (01:17:16):
Yeah, and she has some great lines too. I think
when she's going to kill it in the cave, she says,
you think you're gonna make a slave of the world,
I'll see you in hell first.

Speaker 1 (01:17:27):
Yeah, and she sells it.

Speaker 3 (01:17:28):
She also tells it that it's ugly.

Speaker 1 (01:17:30):
Yeah, it is true.

Speaker 3 (01:17:32):
It is ugly.

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
Yeah, And I think that's one thing they were trying
to sort of drive like they're trying to like hold off.
This is one of the tricky things of having seen
this picture so many times and or having seen that
face on the poster. You know, the menace, the alien
menace is ugly, and I think the film is crafted
in a sense where they wanted that to be a
big reveal and it you know that this should be

(01:17:55):
a realization. Oh, the thing that we thought was a
benefactor really as a hidiot monster. And there's something about
its appearance that cluses into this even more. But you know,
what can you do. You got to put a monster
on the poster.

Speaker 3 (01:18:08):
That's right. So eventually Tom is convinced. He's sort of
he's talked down out of cooperating with the alien, which
is pretty interesting. I don't know if I would normally
expect the plot to work that way in a movie
like this. I would normally expect some kind of I
don't know, like sight or plot twist to change Tom's allegiance.

(01:18:32):
But instead he's just sort of convinced through argumentation.

Speaker 1 (01:18:35):
Yeah, and well, and I think the fact too that
his wife is in peril now, like he realizes that
she is in danger, right, and he has to go
attempt to save her, but also rectify this problem that
he is doomed that he's potentially brought to the planet
that's right.

Speaker 3 (01:18:52):
So Claire has run off to fight the alien herself.
Tom is on Paul's side. Now he's like, okay, we
got to stop it. So paulin Tom both run off
to enact various parts of the plan. Tom arms himself
with like a little flamethrower of some kind, like a
it's not a huge flamethrower. What do you call this thing.
It's like a little tiny, sort of kettle sized flamethrower.

Speaker 1 (01:19:13):
Yeah, like some sort of like little blowtorch sized flamer device. Yeah.
But I really like this division in weapons because obviously
Paul will shoot anything that moves, so he needs a
handgun that fits his character. But Anderson. Anderson's more of
a you know, a thinker. You know. It's like he
had that rifle earlier and the rifle's gone now. I
don't know, it feels appropriate that he's using something a

(01:19:36):
little more sciency, a little more sci fi, you know,
this little flamethrower device.

Speaker 3 (01:19:41):
There is some more brutal violence in this movie, shocking violence,
I would say, for a movie from fifty six, where
he the mind controlled police chief that is working for
the alien. He tries to stop Tom from getting to
the cave and he's like shooting at Tom and Tom
just burns him.

Speaker 1 (01:19:59):
Yeah yeah, yeah, flames him up. Yeah, and he runs
a little bit and falls over on fire. Yeah. So yeah,
but pretty harsh.

Speaker 3 (01:20:06):
But eventually they get to the cave. Oh and this
intersects with a fairly consistently grown inducing subplot where some
soldiers are wandering around in the woods and they're like, oh,
we're hungry, where can we get food? They are not
mine controlled and they're wandering around. But they eventually hear
the violence and the commotion at the cave, so they
go there with all their weapons, and so we end

(01:20:28):
up with a bunch of soldiers going into the cave
confronting the monster, and the monster attacks them. I think
it kills some of them, and ultimately, in the final showdown,
Tom himself has to go up against the creature that
he invited from Venus.

Speaker 1 (01:20:43):
Yeah, and this is this is a pretty satisfying showdown.
I mean, again, the blocking of it, what is possible
with interactions between the monster and human actors aside, it
plays out rather well, I think.

Speaker 3 (01:20:56):
Yeah, the broad payoff in terms of what the characters do,
at least maybe as described on paper works pretty well.
So Paul, sorry, Tom does run up and he like
burns one of the alien's eyes with the blowtorch.

Speaker 1 (01:21:11):
Oh, he like just like sticks that sucker into the
eye socket. Yeah, I mean it's it's great and and
it's made even better because Lee van Kleef delivers like
just this awesome line line that has a lot of
like venom in it, you know, like he's finally seen
through the to the menace here and he's like, I'm
gonna like this is what you get for messing with Earth.

Speaker 3 (01:21:31):
Yeah. Yeah. But then of course he is killed in
the scuffle as well, so he's laying there next to
the dead overturned ice cream cone or artichoke, however you
think of it. And then finally, so all of the
characters except Paul are dead. Basically he's the only one
left standing. And then he gives the monologue the one
I delivered earlier. I'm not going to say it again,

(01:21:53):
but he does explain that, referring to Tom, he learned
almost too late, that man is a feeling creature. Well
wait no, actually, hold on a second. I always assumed
in this monologue he's talking about Tom. Do you think
he could be talking about the alien from Venus or
is he definitely talking about Tom.

Speaker 1 (01:22:10):
Who let's see, let's let's think about it and for himself.
That men have to find their own, their own way,
to make their own mistakes. There can't be any gift
of perfection from outside ourselves. I think he's probably talking
about Tom. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because you know, Tom is
looking for that outside fix that's going to help humanity,

(01:22:33):
something that will help us advance. Like we are. We're
struggling to advance on our own. We need salvation to
come from above.

Speaker 3 (01:22:42):
Yeah, this monologue assumes a it was a good faith
desire to get perfection from the outside, and I don't
know if Paul would assume that about the alien from Venus,
that it was actually trying to help us. Yeah, so
there is hope, but it has to come from inside,
from men himself.

Speaker 1 (01:23:00):
Of course, they don't get into this. Of course, there
was never a sequel or anything to this film. But
you know, there are still other members of the Benefactor
race on Venus. I forget what the headcount was. They
said they're like nine of them.

Speaker 3 (01:23:11):
I think, yeah, it's only eight or nine or something,
and this is just one of them.

Speaker 1 (01:23:15):
Yeah, there's still eight super intelligent Venusians out there who
may or may not be reaching out to humans via
their radar. There may be other alien players in the
Solar System who have a vested interest in keeping humanity
from advancing beyond a certain technological level. So I don't know.

(01:23:36):
It's kind of commendable that a film like this this
does ultimately introduce those kinds of concepts, you know, where
you can leave the theater thinking about all of these
things and wondering, well, how would this how would the
characters from this film? How would the world from this
film progress? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:23:52):
What if the benefactors from Mars come to purchase of
all logic and leave us with only emotion?

Speaker 1 (01:23:57):
Oh wow, there you go. Now there's an interesting sequel
idea for it Conquered the World, Like this time they
promise pure emotion, pure ecstasy, they come in peace.

Speaker 3 (01:24:10):
Yeah, okay, well I think that's all I've got on
it Conquered the World.

Speaker 1 (01:24:15):
All right. Well, yeah, it's a fun one. Highly recommend
it to anyone who's never seen it, and if you've
seen it before, watch it again. It's yeah, it's a hoot.
That three K episode is of course rightfully considered one
of the best as well.

Speaker 3 (01:24:27):
If I recall correctly, by the time that episode is over,
they've played the ending monologue by Peter Graves at least
three times, maybe four. Ye good choice.

Speaker 1 (01:24:40):
All right, we're going to go ahead and close out here,
but we'd love to hear from everyone out there. Misty's
if you want to write in about this one. Old
school science fiction fans, Roger Corman fans write in as well,
Western fans. You may have some thoughts here as well,
especially if it relates to Lee van Cleef. But yeah,
this was film number one hundred and seventy five for

(01:25:01):
Weird House Cinema. If you want to see the full
list of films we've covered over the years and sometimes
get a peek ahead at what's coming up next, go
to letterbox dot com. That's l E T T E
R b o x D dot com. Our user name
there is weird House and you can find that list.
Let's see. If you're on Instagram, follow us we are
st b ym podcast and that way you can keep
up with everything we're doing in the Stuff to Blow

(01:25:22):
Your Mind podcast space.

Speaker 3 (01:25:23):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:25:44):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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