Film Review: Invasion U.S.A. (dir by Alfred Green)

Posted on August 3, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here’s how Invasion, U.S.A. opens:

A bunch of strangers sit in a bar. On the television, a blandly handsome anchorman delivers the news. He talks about foreign wars. He talks about domestic conflicts. One of the bar patrons asks the bartender to turn off the news. Who cares about all of that stuff? All he wants to do is have a nice drink before heading home to his cattle ranch. Can’t he just do that in peace? The bartender agrees and turns off the news…

That’s a scene that gets played out a lot nowadays. No one wants to watch the news. Certainly not me. I guess we all know that we should because it’s important to know what’s going on in the world and blah blah blah. But seriously, people who spend all of their time watching the news inevitably seem to end up going insane and ruining twitter. I’ve got no interest in doing that.

Here’s the thing, though. Invasion U.S.A. may open with a contemporary scene but it’s hardly a contemporary movie. Instead, it was made in 1952 and it serves as proof that we’re not the first Americans to get sick of watching the news and that our current crop of politically minded filmmakers are not the first to try to change our mind with heavy-handed propaganda.

Everyone at the bar has a complaint. The Arizona rancher resents having to pay high taxes just to support the defense department. The Chicago industrialist is upset that the government wants to use his factories to build weapons. Congressman Haroway (Wade Crosby) is a drunk. Socialite Carla Sanford (Peggie Castle) worked in a factory during World War II but she no longer follows the news. Newscaster Vince Potter (Gerald Mohr) is a cynic. Tim the Bartender (Tom Kennedy) is too busy selling cocktails to worry about the communists.

Only the mysterious Mr. Ohman (Dan O’Herlihy, who would later play Conal Cochran in Halloween III) seems to care. While holding a conspicuously oversized brandy glass, Mr. Ohman explains that he’s a forecaster. What’s a forecaster? A forecaster is … oh wait! There’s no time to explain it because the communists have invaded!

Everyone sits in the bar and watches as the news reports on the invasion of the U.S.A. (Everyone except for Mr. Ohman, who has mysteriously vanished.) In the tradition of all low-budget B-movies, the invasion is represented through stock footage. Lots and lots of stock footage. Planes drop bombs. Soldiers run out of a barracks. Cities burn.

When everyone leaves the bar, they discover that America has been crippled by people like them, people who never thought it would happen. Some of our bar patrons die heroically. (Not Tim the Bartender, though. He’s still making dumb jokes and cleaning beer mugs when the bomb drops.) Some of our patrons regret that they didn’t care enough when it would have actually made a difference. The industrialist discovers that, because he wouldn’t let the government take over his factory, he now has to take orders from sniveling little Marxist. The rancher discovers that taxis get really crowded when everyone’s fleeing the Russians. And others discover that better dead than red isn’t just a catch phrase. It’s a way of life.

Of course, there’s a twist ending. You’ll guess it as soon as you see Mr. Ohman with that brandy glass…

Invasion U.S.A. is often cited as one of the worst films ever made but I have to admit that I absolutely love it. I have a soft spot for heavy-handed, over the top propaganda films and they don’t get more heavy-handed than Invasion, U.S.A. There’s not a subtle moment to be found in the entire film. You have to love any film that features character authoritatively declaring that something will never happen mere moments before it happens. Best of all, you’ve got Dan O’Herlihy, playing Mr. Ohman with just a hint of a knowing smile, as if he’s as amused as we are.

Politically, this film is a mixed bag for me. The film argues that you should trust the government and basically, shut up and follow orders. I’m a libertarian so, as you can imagine, that’s not really my thing. At the same time, the villains were all communists and most of the communists that I’ve met in my life have been pretty obnoxious so I enjoyed the part of the film that advocated blowing them up. The only thing this film hates more than communists is indifference.

In the end, Invasion U.S.A. is a real time capsule of a film, one that shows how different things were in the past while also reminding us that times haven’t changed that much. Though the film’s politics may be pure 1952, its paranoia and its condemnation of apathy feels very contemporary.

(For the record, apathy is underrated.)

Seen today, what makes Invasion U.S.A. memorable is its mix of sincerity, paranoia, and Dan O’Herlihy. Unless the communists at YouTube take down the video, you can watch it below!

Horror On The Lens: Time Walker (dir by Tom Kennedy)

Posted on October 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s horror on the lens is 1982’s Time Walker!

Time Walker tells the story of what happens when a mummy that’s actually an alien awakens on a college campus. As you might guess, mayhem and bad fashion choices ensue. To be honest, Time Walker is not the best horror film ever made. In fact, it’s actually pretty bad. However, it is definitely a time capsule of the era in which it was produced and it has one of those WTF endings that you kind of have to see for yourself.

Enjoy!

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #3: The Big House (dir by George Hill)

Posted on April 6, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1930 Best Picture nominee The Big House opens with a black Model T car slowly pulling up to the front of a large and imposing prison. Handcuffed in the back seat of the car is a handsome, nervous-looking young man named Kent (Robert Montgomery). Kent is led into the prison where he is forced to hand over all of his possessions to a grim-looking guard. We find out that Kent has been convicted of manslaughter, the result of hitting someone while driving drunk. For the next ten years, this prison (which, we’re told, was designed to house 1,800 but actually holds 3,000) will be Kent’s home.

Kent finds himself sharing a cell with two lifers. Butch (Wallace Beery) is a coolly manipulative sociopath who alternatively counsels and abuses Kent. Meanwhile, Morgan (Chester Morris) tries to protect Kent and even helps him get his cigarettes back from Butch. These three prisoners represent the three faces of prison: Butch is the unrepentant criminal who is actually more at home in prison than in the “real” world. Morgan is the former criminal who has changed his ways but who is apparently destined to spend the rest of his life paying for his poor decisions. And Kent is the young man who has to decide if he’s going to be like Butch or if he’s going to be like Morgan. The Big House makes the still-relevant argument that the American prison system is more likely to turn Kents into Butches than into Morgans.

When the film began, I assumed that Kent would be the main character but actually, he’s secondary to most of the action. From the moment he first shows up, Kent is not particularly sympathetic and he becomes steadily less likable as the film progresses. Instead, the film is more focused on the always-scheming Butch and the regretful Morgan. While Morgan makes plans to escape from captivity and ends up falling in love with Kent’s sister (Leila Hyams), Butch spends his time plotting ways to take over the prison. For his performance as Butch, Wallace Beery won an Oscar but, seen today, it’s obvious that the film’s heart and soul belongs to Chester Morris’s Morgan.

Like a lot of films from the period, The Big House feels undeniably creaky when viewed through modern eyes. The Big House was made at a time when Hollywood was still trying to make the transition from silent to sound films. As such, the film’s pacing is slower than what contemporary audiences are used to and a few of the performances are undeniably theatrical. I can honestly say that I’m never been more aware of how much I take for granted nonstop background music than when I watch a movie from the early 30s.

That said, once you’ve adapted to the different aesthetic, The Big House holds up fairly well. Director George Hill films the prison like a town in a German expressionist horror film and Chester Morris’s performance remains sympathetic and compelling. If the plot seems familiar, it’s important to remember that The Big House is the film first introduced a lot of the clichés that we now take for granted.

The film’s best moments are the ones that deal not with Kent, Butch, and Morgan but instead just the ones that show hordes of prisoners — all anonymous and forgotten men — going about their daily life. It’s during those scenes that you realize just how many people have been crammed into one tiny space and why that makes it impossible for prison to reform the Kents of the world.

Gandhi once said that the true value of any society can be determined by how that society treats its prisoners and The Big House certainly makes that case.