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Invaders From Mars [DVD]

Jimmy Hunt , Bert Freed , William Cameron Menzies    Parental Guidance   DVD
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
Price: £13.25 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Invaders From Mars [DVD] + This Island Earth [DVD] [1955] + When Worlds Collide [DVD] [1951]
Price For All Three: £21.75

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Product details

  • Actors: Jimmy Hunt, Bert Freed, Douglas Kennedy, Janine Perreau, William Phipps
  • Directors: William Cameron Menzies
  • Format: PAL
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: PG
  • Studio: MPIC Video
  • DVD Release Date: 20 April 2009
  • Run Time: 80 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B000F3PKUW
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 22,345 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)

Reviews

Product Description

A seminal film in the annals of Science Fiction Cinema, Invaders From Mars has the ability to provoke the frightened child in all of us. A young boy has a nightmare (or does he?) about a flying saucer landing near his back yard after which his parents and others transform into possessed, soulless saboteurs with tiny control devices implanted in their necks. The film was released in 1953 when the United States was still in the Cold War paranoia grip of the McCarthy era and UFO sightings were increasingly on the rise. It was the classic 'don't watch it with the lights turned out' sci-fi film and is still considered by many to be the scariest sci-fi movie to come out of the fifties. Brilliantly designed and directed by William Cameron Menzies (Academy Award winning art director for Gone With The Wind and director of the H.G. Wells classic Things To Come). With a meagre budget of $290,000, he and cinematographer John F. Seitz (Sunset Boulevard, The Lost Weekend) used minimalist sets and forced perspective to lift a standard invasion story into the surreal. Menzies clever designs distort the viewer's perception to that of a small boy's nightmare. The child's idea of a police station (stark and stretched, as if designed by Dali), of a scientist's lab (towering test tubes frame the image like jail-cell bars), and of the principal set, an oddly foreshortened grassy knoll, on the far side of which loved ones are taken body and soul. The eerie score by Mort Glickman and the otherworldly, inky hues of the CineColor process add to the dreamlike distortion of reality. These days, feelings about the film fall into two camps. One opinion is that of a schlock, Saturday matinee with cardboard sets and wooden dialogue, budget saving devices such as repeated stock footage of US troops and Martian slaves costumed in velour jumpsuits with visible zippers. Then there are those that venerate it as the definitive embodiment of Cold War paranoia and alien infiltration. A spellbinding yet flawed masterpiece of expressionist design that weaves a dreamlike aura where childhood fears of otherness and detachment stab at the subconscious. It is likely that both are right.

Review

It is spine-tingling from scratch, with excitement and suspense being built and maintained through a cleverly contrived screenplay, sincere performances and adroit direction by William Cameron Menzies. --Box Office Magazine

A Sci Fi classic that, at least in Savant's opinion, should be showing in the Louvre. --DVD Savant

Invaders From Mars is one of the classics of golden age science fiction, right up there with Forbidden Planet, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and When Worlds Collide. --IgN


Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Region One 50th Anniversary Special Edition 3 Oct 2009
This Region One disc includes both the U.S. and British versions of the movie and an illustrated collector's booklet. It claims a brand new digital transfer but lines and flashes are still evident, this being a very old movie (this didn't bother me at all). There is also a theatrical trailer and a still gallery. A young boy is awakened during a storm and sees a UFO land near his home. His father (Leif Erickson-went onto play Big John Cannon in The High Chaparral) is abducted and is fitted with an alien implant (this in 1953!). His father and others are controlled by the aliens through their implants and the movie develops at a cracking pace from thereon. The British version is longer (everything is on one disc). This is because the movie was considered too short for a British cinema release and the ending also deemed as inappropriate. You will notice that sometime had elapsed before the extra footage was shot and consequently the actor (Jimmy Hunt) playing the boy was older and somewhat taller in the extended planetarium scene. This scene also includes reference to a famous UFO incident, not mentioned in the U.S. version. I prefer the British ending which seemed more reasonable but I won't spoil anything for you. Well worth buying this 50th Anniversary Special Edition. Sorry, there are no subtitles for either version of the movie.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A genuine classic 17 Nov 2011
Amazon Verified Purchase
A young astronomer witnesses the arrival of a flying saucer in the wilds outside his house one night. His father goes to investigate and returns a very different man. Before long it is evident people are being taken into the underground saucer and put under alien control. But who will believe this lad's fantastic story?

Forget "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". This is a masterpiece of sci-fi. It captures excellently the threatening, imposing world from the viewpoint of a small boy, combined with classic "reds under the beds" paranoia. What really holds this film above the majority of other similar films of the 1950s and 60s are the genuinely unnerving atmosphere, the superb acting (for example, witness the first victim's transformation from caring family guy to icy conspirator and the creepy little girl who tries to burn down her family home), the attention to detail, the cerebral story and of course the aliens themselves. They are voiceless and underplayed, and therefore come across as memorably sinister.

This DVD set comes with the original US and the extended British version (the one with the proper ending which strangely isn't available in Britain). There's also a collector's booklet.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Where is Col. Fielding when you need him? 7 May 2006
By bernie VINE™ VOICE
Format:DVD
Be sure to notice all the standard Sci-fi actors and even the Beaver's mother "Kelston's Secretary" (Barbara Billingsley).

This movie was well done with just the right amount of spookiness and has a kid's perspective on what is happening. This is not a kid is smarter than his/her parents movie. There are lots of strange happenings and lots of tension. I will not go into the details as if you have not seen the movie it is more fun to be surprised.

Right from the beginning Little David MacLean sees a flying saucer land in the sandpit behind the house. He tells his parents. They being good parents check it out for him and naturally find nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe he had a nightmare or maybe the nightmare is just beginning as everyone starts acting strange and only David can sound the alarm.

What would you do? Where is Col. Fielding when you need him?
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars Tram Line Scratches !
Presentation of this release is fine - nice booklet, clever information cards - and the alternative USA and UK versions with the switched climaxes. Read more
Published 8 months ago by zap
4.0 out of 5 stars invaders from mars 1953 region free
Ordered this region 1 disc to play in the UK and was pleasantly suprised to find that it is region free though its in the 4.3 NTSC format as stated.
Published 12 months ago by paul in the uk
5.0 out of 5 stars must see
just watched this again ,better than when i saw it many years ago ,the film condition is nt great but its just one of those things ,perhaps one day a cleaned up version will become... Read more
Published 17 months ago by graeme 61
2.0 out of 5 stars faster from jupiter
what to say, except it's a classic !! excellent quality & a definetly must have to your collection together with other 50's movies! .. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Roberto Sedda
3.0 out of 5 stars Invaders from Mars
Invaders from mars.
Apart from the kid just happened to live near and know the astronomers at the local observatory and other coincidences, the stock film of tanks ad stuff... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Mr. M. Macrae
5.0 out of 5 stars Creepy, 50s style
Ok, try to put yourself in a 1950's mind set (and close your eyes to certain low-budget zippers and things). Read more
Published on 28 Mar 2011 by andy volper
5.0 out of 5 stars Here come the Sandmen
Little David Maclean(Jimmy Hunt) loves to get up in the middle of the night and look through his telescope at the stars and constellations. Read more
Published on 17 Feb 2011 by Mr. Jonathon T. Beckett
5.0 out of 5 stars Invaders from Mars
This is the original classic which famouslyt showed a headless alien entity, good special effects and people disappearing under the sand and all mitnessed by a boy who is unable to... Read more
Published on 22 Dec 2010 by Andy
3.0 out of 5 stars Are you in or out with it?
Invaders From Mars is directed by William Cameron Menzies, based from an idea by Richard Blake and adapted to story treatment by John Tucker Battle. Read more
Published on 28 Nov 2010 by Spike Owen
5.0 out of 5 stars One Of A kind Classic Sci-fi
This is a genuine Sci-fi classic, and i enjoyed it as much today as i did when i first saw it on television when i was a child. Read more
Published on 8 Jan 2010 by Miss Suzanne Edmiston
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