IT CONQUERED THE WORLD
directed by Roger Corman - USA 1956 
The following is an excerpt from Roger Corman's biography, How I Made a 
Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime, about the making of It 
Conquered the World:

"Before shooting, Beverly (Garland) ad-libbed a few sharp lines of her own.  
From my engineering and physics background, I'd reasoned that a being from a 
planet with a powerful field of gravity would sit very low to the ground.  So 
with my effects man, Paul Blaisdell, I'd designed a rather squat creature.  
But just before we were to shoot the climatic showdown with Beverly and the 
monster, she stood over it and stared it down, hands on her hips.  "So," she 
said with a derisive snarl, making sure I heard her, "you've come to conquer 
our world, have you?  Well, take that!" And she kicked
the monster in the head. I got the point immediately.  By that afternoon the 
monster was rebuilt ten feet high.  Lesson one: Always make the monster bigger 
than your leading lady."

A friend of mine once asked what was the differance between Roger Corman and 
Ed Wood.  Well, I think Roger was a little more technically sound and 
definately more savy in judging talent.  I think Roger made films while Ed 
tried to make movies. This was one of Roger's first attempts at science 
fiction.  It played as a double bill with The Day the World Ended.  It is also 
one of the first co-productions with AIP. As far as this film goes, I think 
it's lofty script ambitions (Scripted by another Corman regular, Lou Russof) 
were sold a little short by production costs.  It's communistic overtones 
aren't very subtle.  The only person refusing to evacuate is the newspaper man 
and the zombie sheriff quickly kills him.  Freedom of the press isn't that 
free I guess.
It borrows heavily (Okay, ripped off.) from Invasion of the Body Snatchers and 
The Day the Earth Stood Still.  Another Corman trademark, exploitation at its 
best.

3-B Theatre 
 
Much of "It conquered the world" is unconvincing, or silly, or simply cheap. 
Dialogue like "That superior intelligence happens to be a personal friend of 
mine" doesn't help matters either, though it is memorable. But what's good 
about the picture is very good. The rest of the dialog is mostly vivid -one 
doesn't ask for or even want realitic dialog in most of these films- and the 
performances are mostly very interesting. The ideas are sharp and intelligent, 
and Corman's direction and pacing are effective. The score by Ronald Stein is 
also very good for such an inexpensive film. Simply because of the absurdity 
of its monster, "It conquered the worls" is scorned even by people who should 
know better. (The failed ambition of the title also seems to be a factor in 
the low opinions of some.) The remake, "Zontar the thing from Venus (1968) was 
instructively worse: the same script resulted in a ghastly disaster when 
directed and acted by incompetents. But had the script been given a solid, 
careful rewrite and A-budget treatment, "It conquered the world" could easily 
have been one of the best SF films of the 1950s.


Bill Warren
"Keep watching the skies!"
McFarland & Company, Inc., publishers 
 
(http://utenti.tripod.it/sci_fi/conqrece.html)