Paranoia in Science Fiction Films of the 1950’s

Paranoia in Science Fiction Films of the 1950’s
The appealing nature of Science Fiction Films is their ability to use scientific possibilities and radical social arguments to convey their controversial narratives. Richard Hodgens believes some of the most original and thoughtful contemporary fiction has been represented in the Science Fiction film genre (Hodgens 30). So in a broader sense any style, vision or mood can be conveyed within the limitless boundaries of the Science Fiction narrative, especially during the 1950’s in US cinema. This belief is also echoed by Peter Nicholls who argues science fiction was deemed socially insignificant and could play host to political criticism of a kind which might elsewhere have attracted attention of Joseph McCarthy and his Un-American Activities Committee (Clute).
Dr. Miles J. Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) is the panicked stricken physician in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). Dr. Bennell in the trailer looks into the camera and screams in desperation “They’re here already! You're next! You're next, you're next!” (Invasion of the Body Snatchers Trailer). This line of dialogue from the trailer of Don Siegel’s classic Science Fiction “B” movie sums up the fear and paranoia represented in Hollywood’s Science Fictions films of the 1950’s. These films allowed Hollywood to explore the pervasive anxiety caused by Cold War politics; these films target the ambivalence towards America’s creation of the very weapons that helped catapult the United Sates into superpower status as well as the generalized fear of nuclear proliferation.
The Soviet Union extended its control across the continent of Central Europe in 1945. Winston Churchill sent a top-secret telegram to President Truman on May 12, 1945, and he confided with Truman of his uncertainty of what was going on behind the Soviet Union’s Iron Curtain (Churchill 1). The telegram was the first time the Prime Minister of England used his now famous term “Iron Curtain” and may have been the original seed of paranoia which ended up sweeping through the United States as the threat of communism grew under the leadership of Joseph Stalin.
As the director and principal scientist of the Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos research lab in Alamogordo, New Mexico, J. Robert Oppenheimer witnessed the first explosion of the atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert. "We knew the world would not be the same" (A Science Odyssey). A collective paranoia was triggered in 1945 and would expand during the 1950’s starting with the end of World War II and the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. With the threat of nuclear weaponry and radiation, Hollywood recognized and capitalized on this postwar “atomic age” anxiety.
In The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Michael Rennie stars as Klaatu, an alien from a distant planet whose spaceship lands on a baseball diamond in Washington D.C. Klaatu wishes to meet the representatives of earth to deliver a vital message, warning the citizens the dangers of atomic technology. “It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder your present We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you” (The Day the Earth Stood Still). The warning is a similar approach the United States took in cautioning the Japanese during the last days of the war. The United States military dropped leaflets on the Japanese people after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima warning the populace the United States was in possession of the most destructive force ever devised by man (American Experience). In addition, the leaflets encouraged the Japanese to evacuate their cities before the second bomb was dropped, even though they had little chance to escape or surrender. In this chilling spectacle of art imitates life, both invaders intended to warn the populations about the looming dangers through fear and paranoia which jolted the people into some degree of common sense. In the case of the Japanese, the Americans were using nuclear destruction as a threat to force the Japanese into surrender, whereas Klaatu, poses his warning as a possible threat for the entire planet. By the time The Day the Earth Stood Still had been produced, nuclear proliferation was evolving as an American bargaining chip in the battle of the Cold War.
Them! (1954), now regarded as a classic Science Fiction “B” bug film was the highest grossing film for Warner Brothers studios 1954. In the opening scene The Ellinson Girl, portrayed by Sandy Descher wanders the desert in her flannel bath robe, staring into the distance resembling someone who had just witnessed an apocalyptic incident. This foreshadowing scene sets the apocalyptic mood of fear and apprehension for Them!. Them!, starring James Whitmore, as Police Sgt. Ben Peterson discovers ants the size of Buicks that are exposed to radiation during the Trinity nuclear tests near White Sands, New Mexico. The irradiated ants destroy people and property as they hunt for nourishment in the barren New Mexico desert. These mutated ants then pillaged their way to Los Angeles where they finally succumb to military flamethrowers of the National Guard. Them! is the classic story of nuclear fear and widespread anxiety of atomic annihilation in the nuclear age (Tsutsui 240). The entomologist in Them!, Dr. Harold Medford, played by Edmund Gwenn reinforces the apocalyptic paranoia of the new atomic era by this foreshadowing statement “We may be witnessing a Biblical prophecy come true”, “And there shall be destruction and darkness come upon creation and beasts will reign over the earth” (Them!). And in the ending scene, Peter Graves characters Robert Grahm asks,
” if these monsters got started as a result of the first atomic bomb in 1945, what about all the others that have been exploded since then? Dr. Harold Medford, answers solemnly, “Nobody knows, Robert. When man entered the atomic age, he opened a door into a new world. What will he eventually find in that new world, nobody can predict (Them!)”.
In Susan Sontag’s essay “The Imagination of Disaster”, Sontag argues a trauma exists over the use of nuclear weapons and Science Fiction films bear witness to this distress. Sontag also states the murderous insect genre “serve a complex psychological function for the anxious movie going- masses, at once distracting us from and numbing us to the ever-present possibility of nuclear Armageddon” (Tsutsui 241).
Them! was not the only film which capitalized on the paranoia of radiation and insects. AB-PT Pictures Corp produced, Beginning of the End (1957). This black and white classic was Hollywood’s first presentation of an atomic bomb (Hendershot 42). An Illinois state experimental farm accidentally creates giant grasshoppers with fertilizer laced with radioactive material. These giant irradiated arthropods descend on Chicago destroying everything in their path, even though they have been doused with poisonous chlordane by the military. Fear increases because science can’t solve the problem, immediately. The military wants to drop an Atomic bomb on Chicago to destroy the grasshoppers, but Dr. Ed Wainwright (Peter Graves) has a solution to lure the locust into Lake Michigan with a recording of the locust mating call.
The mating call draws the locusts to their watery death. An even greater sense of paranoia is injected into the final scenes of the film, when Dr. Wainwright ponders what other creatures have feasted on the radioactive fertilizer and have grown to a humongous size. The government in its role as protector actually fails the citizens of the United States and causes the radiation catastrophe, furthering the paranoia, not from an external source, but from within the authoritative society.
With the adaption of the National Security Council Report 68 the United States tried to contain the spread of communism through policy. Arguably the use of economic and diplomatic measures was more desirable for some. But after the Soviet Union’s test of an atomic bomb, RDS 1 on 29 August 1949, U.S. officials believed they needed an arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons to contain the threat of communism (Leffler 69). As Gary B. Nash in his textbook, The American People so accurately states, “The Cold War was the greatest single force affecting American society during the decade and a half after World War II” (Nash 330).
In 1952, Winchester Pictures Company released The Thing From Another World (1951), distributed by RKO Radio Pictures and produced by Howard Hawks. Early on in The Thing, Captain Patrick Hendry (Kenneth Tobey) is notified, an unidentified aircraft has crashed landed near their arctic research station. Captain Hendry shows the first sign of paranoia by assuming it’s a Russian plane that has crash landed. “Could be Russians, They’re all over the place like files (Saleh 29)”. In addition, to the Soviet invasion theory, paranoia is also abetted by the Geiger counter, a device that measures radiation activity. When the North Pole scientists discover the crash site, the Geiger counter measurements are off the scale, increasing the nuclear fear and paranoia that often accompanies Science Fiction films of this generation.
The scientists soon realize this is no ordinary airplane, but a spaceship from outer space with an alien which is made of vegetable tissue. Even though The Thing, played by James Arness goes on a rampage and kills several sled dogs and personal by drinking their blood. The botanist, Dr. Arthur Carrington, hypotheses the alien vegetable is an intelligent creature and he desires to communicate with it. Eric Smoodin in Watching the Skies believes the vegetable alien in The Thing is a metaphor for Soviet infiltration. Believing the Soviets can infiltrate anything and thus everything is potentially vulnerable and dangerous -- even plants.
In addition Scotty, (Douglas Spencer) the intrepid reporter in The Thing, ends the film with a radio transmission to his fellow journalists, further establishing the anxiety driven narrative, “I bring you a warning. Every one of you listening to my voice, tell the world, tell this to everybody wherever they are. Watch the skies, everywhere, keep looking, keep watching the skies” (Saleh 37).
In The Day the Earth Stood Still a number of paranoia themes, including the threat of a Soviet invasion are introduced. After being shot and taken to Walter Reed Hospital, Klaatu is visited by Mr. Harley, a secretary of the President. When Klaatu wants to get out among the people, Mr. Harley rejects the idea, and asks Klaatu not to attempt to leave the hospital. Clearly, the United States government is fearful and does not want Klaatu influence to spread. In another scene, Mrs. Barley (Frances Bavier) after hearing Klaatu has escaped from an army hospital expresses her concern he is a spaceman from the Soviet Union (Pardon 145). Mrs. Barley’s paranoia is also inflamed by the morning radio reports, “The creature- where is he? What is he up to? He must be tracked down like a wild animal. He must be destroyed.” The realism of the radio broadcasts in The Day the Earth Stood Still is amplified by the director, Robert Wise. Wise used real-life television and radio personalities who contributed to the sense of authenticity and accuracy (Haspel 65). Their voices were so familiar for the exhibition of this film they contributed to the verisimilitude of this paranoid narrative.
As Walter Lippman so appropriately coined the term “The Cold War” in 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee, went looking for communists and communists sympathizers in Hollywood from 1947 to the 1950’s. The most famous victims of the communist hunt were the “Hollywood Ten”. These eight writers, including one director and producer refused to discuss their political affiliation with the congressional commission. The “Hollywood Ten” were blacklisted from Hollywood and jailed for one year for contempt of Congress (Eckstein 424). Also, during the early 1950’s the Korean armistice was signed, and American newspapers were full of stories reporting American soldiers who chose communism instead of returning home (Johnson 6).
This political atmosphere in the United States created a perfect storm for mistrust and fear that communists were on every block threatening the American values and way of life. Two films in particular, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Invaders from Mars (1953) exemplified anxiety in their narratives. However, many film theorists, writers and producers of these two landmark film exhibitions have differing views of the causes and interpretations of paranoia in these groundbreaking productions.
The communist-infiltration allegory in Invasion of the Body Snatchers is reflected in the odd behavior of the citizens of Santa Mira. They just do not seem like themselves. They fall asleep and their bodies are taken over by aliens who promise a life free of the pain of love and ambition. According to R Briley, in Reel History and the Cold War: A Lesson Plan, the message embodied in Invasion of the Body Snatchers is to be vigilant. Anyone, doctor, friend or wife could be part of a communist conspiracy (Briley 21).
In Guy Braucourt’s 1972 interview with Don Siegel, Siegel affirms the majorities of people in the world are pods, existing without any intellectual aspirations and are incapable of love. Yet again, in a 1976 interview with Stuart M. Kaminsky, Siegel reaffirms his view of humanity, “many of my associates are certainly pods, they have no feelings, they exist, breathe, sleep” (Sanders 56). Siegel’s execution of paranoia can be seen thru the interpretations of his characters, by turning friends, neighbors and lovers into lifeless individuals who lack emotion, drive and inspiration. Granted Siegel used Jack Finney’s serialized stories, Body Snatchers (1954) and Daniel Mainwaring’s script which guided the film to its unhappy ending (Sanders 56).
But in the most interesting analysis of Invasion of the Body Snatchers Steven M. Sanders in Philosophy of Science Fiction Film, see’s Dr. Miles J. Bennell story told to Dr. Hill (Whit Bissell),of the pod invasion, as a deranged paranoid tale. A complete fabrication of fantasy, without a strand of truth, told by an anxiety driven madman.
Also, in a 1985 interview with Kevin McCarthy, Tom Hatten of Golden West Broadcasters asks McCarthy if there were any political ramifications in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. McCarthy answers with a bit of a chuckle, “the movie was about Madison Avenue, they have no hearts at all, they turn out material just to sell things” (1956).
In William Cameron Menzies’s Invaders from Mars (1953) paranoia is generally depicted as there is no place to hide in postwar small town America (Hendershot 43). In Invaders from Mars, a flying saucer lands in David’s (Jimmy Hunt’s) backyard. David’s father, George (Leif Erickson) investigates the landing and falls into a sand pit and is captured by the Martians. The Martians insert a small crystal device in the base of George’s skull and he becomes a slave to the Martians demands. As the Martians collect slaves for destroying the secret atomic rocket installation of this small western town, paranoia has spread, concerning the Martian invasion and the secret US military installation.
Even before David’s father is captured by the Martians he talked about his work as being secret. And when David visit’s his friend Dr. Kelston (Arthur Franz) at the observatory, there is a heightening sense of anxiety when David is told his visits must be curtailed since, “things got to hush-hush”(Latham 200). The secrecy in Invaders from Mars tends to lend itself to a Cold War allegory. The Martians are represented as Soviets who are invading with Marxist theory and attacking and destroying the working middle class in this military industrial complex.
As Bryan E. Vizzini points out the Martins in Invaders from Mars would also be identified by the spectatorship of the 1950’s as Communists. Given, the Martins are attacking a secret nuclear missile project by proxy with American spies (Vizzini 29). The spies could easily be interpreted as Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. The first American civilians executed for espionage in 1953. With the increased publicity surrounding the Rosenberg trail and nearly two dozen newspapers and magazines, influenced public perceptions of the danger of "communist sub- version in government". The Department of Justice "framed the Rosenberg case for the news media" instead of merely reacting to public fears that the press had fanned (Whitfield 1079). Clearly this hysteria surrounding the Rosenberg trial helped fan the anxiety level.
In the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists a disturbing and anxiety driven view of suburban life was discussed (Latham 201). The atomic scientists believed in 1951 the United States should move its population from larger cities to smaller communities, so as to ease the destruction of a nuclear attack. A 1954 review in the New York Times describes Invaders from Mars as pabulum for adults and has having met the demands of today’s space-struck youngsters (Science-Fiction Tale Exciting Most of Way 2). Little did this 1954 reviewer know Invaders from Mars would propose a piercing commentary on the postwar experience of suburbia and the cry for conformity and anxiety which goes along with the suburban community.
George Pal, a Hungarian animator who worked for UFA (Universum Film AG) in Berlin during the Weimar Republic, immigrated to the United States at the start of the Second World War in 1939 (Saxon 44). Mr. Pal is now regarded by many as the father of contemporary Science Fiction, with films as Destination Moon (1950) and The War of the Worlds (1953).
Destination Moon, produced by George Pal and directed by Irving Pichel is based on the novel Rocketship Galileo (1947) by Robert A. Heinlein. Destination Moon in the opening three scenes does not hesitate to jump on the paranoia bandwagon of the 1950’s. The film starts with an abortive rocket launch at a high security military installation. General Thayer (Tom Powers) and Dr. Charles Cargraves (Warner Anderson) witness the disastrous rocket crash from their desert bunker. General Thayer asks, “What happened Charles, what went wrong”, Charles’s explains the rocket motor failed and was probably due to sabotage. Both Scientist and General agree that it must be sabotage and they should leave it up to “Intelligence” to find the persons responsible. The film audience at the time of exhibition should accept the communist infiltration narrative, particularly since Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs, a Los Alamos physicist had been found guilty in 1950 for passing secrets to the Russians from 1942 to 1949. “It was probably due to sabotage”, this simple line of dialogue, confirms the hysterical political atmosphere surrounding Destination Moon.
In the next scene, General Thayer, meets Jim Barnes (John Archer) of Barnes Aircraft Corporation. Thayer convinces Barnes his company needs to build a spaceship to the moon without government support, because the government is not interested in pursuing space research during peace time.
In the following scene, Barnes, Thayer and Cargraves meet with investors to convince them to invest in their rocket ship to the moon. After viewing a marketing film with cartoon character Woody Woodpecker as the moderator, General Thayer explains the urgency of this moon mission.”The reason is quite simple. We are not the only ones who know that the Moon can be reached. We're not the only ones who are planning to go there. The race is on - and we'd better win it, because there is absolutely no way to stop an attack from outer space. The first country that can use the Moon for the launching of missiles... will control the Earth. That, gentlemen, is the most important military fact of this century” (Destination Moon). These three before mentioned scenes, were the only references to the Cold War paranoia in Destination Moon. The screenplay based on Rocketship Galileo was altered by Robert A. Heinlein, to highlight the Cold War tensions during the McCarthy era (Saleh 17). Heinlein was also anxious about beating the Soviets into space and emphasized the realism and believability of space travel portrayed in Destination Moon. Heinlein also believed a trip to the moon was essential for military concerns and this narrative became part of the national rhetoric (The Future Is Now 58). Indeed, publicity material for Destination Moon also emphasized the need for military exercises on the moon. One of these articles was, “Must America Engage in a Race to the Moon in Self-Defense?” which was published in press kits for Destination Moon in 1950 (The Future Is Now 62).
The War of the Worlds (1953) was Paramount Pictures most successful motion picture in 1953. George Pal produced The War of the Worlds after the script sat idle at Paramount Studios for some 26 years. H.G. Well’s sold the movie rights of The War of the Worlds (1898) to Paramount Pictures in 1925, hoping Cecil B. DeMille would direct the film. Pal discovered the script contacted Byron Haskin to direct the film and Barre Lyndon to write the screenplay. The War of the Worlds was an “A” list Science Fiction saga which took eight months of special and optical effects to complete and won the Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects in 1954 (Pal 2). It cost Paramount Pictures an estimated two million dollars, more expensive than Pals previous films, Destination Moon and When Worlds Collide (1951).
Much has been written about H.G. Well’s apocalyptic novel The War of the Worlds. It was updated considerably, to account for the current political and social issues of the 1950’s. Originally, The War of the Worlds was written based on several historical events, the unification and militarization of Germany, being the most important historical event (Study).
George Pal's, The War of the Worlds reveals a number of cultural fears that plagued America in the years immediately following the Second World War: the fear of Soviet invasion, the dubious security of nuclear weaponry, and fragility of civilized behavior in the face of apocalyptic threat (Journal 2). In November of 1952 the United States tested its first Hydrogen bomb code-named “Mike” for “megaton” which was 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb denoted over Hiroshima (Operation Ivy). A year later, the Soviet Union tested RD-6 the country’s largest nuclear test which was 30 times stronger than the Hiroshima detonation (12, August 1953).
Robert Torry, in his seminal work, Apocalypse Then: Benefits of the Bomb in Fifties Science Fiction Films (1991) describes the realism and special effects in The War of the Worlds. The special effects with the help of Gordon Jennings and Walter Hoffman created the horrors of modern warfare conducted on American soil. With the heighten anxiety of Soviet weapons research, the Martians in The War of the Worlds demonstrated a technology that surpassed the United States and acted as a metaphorical surrogate for the Soviets in this apocalypse narrative. When the military generals decide to drop a nuclear device on the invading Martins, a top secret Northrop Flying Wing is used to drop an atomic bomb on the Martians spacecraft. The atom bomb fails to inflict any damage to the Martian spacecraft. This humiliating military defeat, furthers the narrative of the United States inferiority against a technologically advanced military. Thus, we can view the threat of invasion and annihilation very possible in the age of nuclear weapons on US soil.
The War of the Worlds is also filled with religious allegories. With the Martin threat over, ”The ending is a ringing endorsement of humankind’s place in the universe secured by God’s blessing and protection” (Journal 2). The narrator in a “Biblical Voice” recites an ending prayer during the last scene of The War of the Worlds. “After all that men could do had failed, the Martians were destroyed and humanity was saved by the littlest things, which God, in His wisdom, had put upon this Earth” (The War of the Worlds (1953) - Memorable Quotes).
Although the “savior” ending in The War of the Worlds does ease the anxiety factor of complete human annihilation of the human race. Except history, has demonstrated the contrary to this dramatic ending. “Most scholars agree the American Indian population were reduced substantially following European contact by a variety of Old World diseases “(Thornton, Russell, Tim Miller, and Jonathan Warren 28). In this historical context, the paranoid and cautious view should have resulted in finding microbes from the Martin planet that invades and ravages the human race. Instead, George Pal turns this historical concept on its head. The Martins succumb to the common cold and are destroyed and humanity on earth is saved. This scenario neutralizes religion, science and military might and enforces Well’s acceptance of Eugenics and Darwinism. The survival of the fittest narrative plays well in this story, except the human race is the dominate species, not the technically advanced Martins invaders.
The political and cultural atmosphere of the 1950’s provided a rich and fertile landscape for anxiety driven narratives in the Science Fiction genre. As we look back some 60 years, our interpretations are mixed with historical perspectives, critical scholarship and various opinions. And in some film analysis, the Cold War, nuclear annihilation and McCarthyism have little to do with these thoughtful presentations. But this miracle ending is counter to invasion principals





















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