The British Reception of 1950s Science Fiction

Cinema

A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester

for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty
of Humanities

2011

Matthew William Jones

School of Arts, Histories and Cultures

 Contents

Abstract! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 3

Declaration! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 4

Copyright Statement! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 5

Acknowledgements!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 6

Introduction! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 7

Chapter One: Contexts and Approaches! ! ! ! ! 45

! Section A: The Invading Other! ! ! ! ! !

Chapter Two: The Communist and the Other in 1950s Science Fiction! 98
! Cinemaʼs Depersonalisation Narratives

Chapter Three: Immigration and the Other in 1950s Science Fiction! 135
! Cinemaʼs Alien Encounter Narratives

! Section B: Science and Technology! ! ! ! !

Chapter Four: Nuclear Technology and 1950s Science Fiction! ! 174

! Cinemaʼs Creature Features

Chapter Five: Imperial Decline, American Invasion and Technology!! 212

! in 1950s Science Fiction Cinema

Conclusion! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 255

Bibliography!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 267

Media Sources! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 291

Filmography!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 294

Word Count: 80,167

2
 Abstract

The University of Manchester

Matthew William Jones
Doctor of Philosophy
ʻThe British Reception of 1950s Science Fiction Cinemaʼ
2011

! Scholarship on 1950s American science fiction cinema has tended to

explore the relationship between these films and their domestic contexts of
production and reception. They are often characterised as reflections of US
anxieties about communism and nuclear technology. However, many such films
were exported to Britain where these concerns were articulated and understood
differently. The ways in which this different national context of reception shaped
British interpretations of American science fiction cinema of this era has not yet
been accounted for. Similarly, although some research has addressed 1950s
British science fiction, this scholarship has been comparatively concise and has
left gaps in our knowledge about the domestic reception of these films. Unable
to draw on a British reception history of domestic and US 1950s science fiction
cinema, debates about the genre have sometimes been underpinned by the
presumption that western audiences responded to these films in a uniform
manner. This thesis seeks to complicate our understanding of the genre by
suggesting the specificity of the British reception history of science fiction
cinema during the 1950s.

! The paucity of documentary evidence of British responses to 1950s

science fiction films makes an audience study impossible. Within the intellectual
framework of the New Film History, this thesis instead employs a contextually-
activated approach to reception. Making extensive use of archival sources,
newsreels, newspapers, magazines and other such documentary evidence, it
explores some of the different contexts in which 1950s science fiction cinema
was received in Britain and suggests how these factors might have shaped the
interpretation of the genre.

! The thesis examines the interplay between American and British 1950s
science fiction cinema and the British public understanding of communism,
immigration, nuclear technology and scientific advancement. It contributes to
our knowledge of these films by demonstrating that Britons did not necessarily
understand 1950s science fiction cinema in the same way as Americans
because they were party to a differently inflected series of public debates. It
exposes the flexibility of the metaphors utilised by the genre during this period
and their susceptibility to reinterpretation in different national contexts. This
research makes visible, in a more extensive manner than has yet been
accomplished, the specificity of the British reception history of 1950s science
fiction cinema, and thereby provides a means to resist assumptions about the
similarity of western audiences during this decade. Its conclusions call for
further research into other national reception histories of these films, so that
they too are not overshadowed by the better known American history of the
genre, and into the possibility that the British reception history of other genres
might similarly have been obscured.

3
 Declaration

No portion of the work referred to in this thesis has been submitted in support of
an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university
or other institute of learning.

4
 Copyright Statement

i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this
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has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright,
including for administrative purposes.

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5
 Acknowledgements
I am grateful for the support of the following people and institutions:

David Butler, who has been an exemplary doctoral supervisor throughout this process
and has enthusiastically encouraged my development as a researcher, a teacher and a
Doctor Who fan.

Felicia Chan, Rajinder Dudrah, Victoria Lowe and Jackie Stacey, who have given their
time and guidance at various points during this project.

Peter Hutchings and Victoria Lowe (again!), whose useful advice during my viva voce
examination showed me a way out of some of the traps that I had thought myself into.

Simon Spiegel, who read and offered insightful feedback on an early draft of the second
chapter.

Linda Kaye at the British Universities Film and Video Council, who introduced me to their
fascinating News on Screen project and its database of digitised newsreel footage over a
serendipitous dinner in Chicago.

Dave Gargani, director of the compelling documentary Monsters from the Id (2009), who
supplied me with a copy of his film.

The Insight Collections and Research Centre at the National Media Museum in Bradford
and its staff, who ensured that my visits were both profitable and enjoyable.

The National Archives and its staff, who made it possible to examine many of the
historical documents that inform this research.

The British Film Institute National Library and its staff, whose generous help is reflected
in the wealth of material that I returned home with.

The National Museum of Nuclear Science and History in Albuquerque, New Mexico and
its staff, who relieved me of a number of misconceptions about atomic age America.

The Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association, who financed my visits to
the BFI and the National Media Museum through the generous prize money that was
awarded to my research at the 2008 conference in Cardiff.

The Drama Department at the University of Manchester, who provided me with regular
teaching work to help fund this project.

The School of Arts, Histories and Cultures at the University of Manchester, whose
Postgraduate Research Travel Award allowed me to visit the Science Fiction Foundation
Masterclass in 2010 in London, where the tutors and my fellow students offered useful
advice and kind support.

Ashley Brown, Christine Gilroy, Jane Jones, Kevin Jones and Graham Rees, my
volunteer army of proofreaders.

Chris Hansen, Niall Harrison, Roz Kaveney, Cynthia Miller, Abigail Nussbaum and
Jennifer Stoy, who have each provided me with the opportunity to publish work that I
have completed alongside my doctoral research.

Finally, my friends and family, who all deserve more than mere thanks for the support,
encouragement and tolerance that they have afforded me during these last four years.

6
 Introduction

! A nuclear test takes place in the Arctic Circle. The explosion melts the ice

that has kept a gigantic, reptilian beast in a deep sleep since prehistoric times.

Once awoken, the creature carves a path of destruction along North Americaʼs

Atlantic coast, ending in a deadly rampage through New York City. This

sequence of events, which forms the plot of the American 1950s science fiction

film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), has tended to be interpreted in

both the academic and popular writing on 1950s science fiction cinema as a

metaphorical representation of US Cold War anxieties about nuclear weaponry,

with the monster serving as an embodiment of the dangerous potential of the

explosion that released it.1 Drawing on the seminal work of Susan Sontag, a

number of the eraʼs American radioactive monster movies have similarly been

connected by scholars and critics to US fears of nuclear technology and

particularly Soviet nuclear weaponry.2

! However, these anxieties were not consistent across every nation to

which these films were exported. Across the Atlantic Ocean, Britain was

engaged in a period of what Keith Chapman has described as ʻconsiderable

optimismʼ about nuclear technology, culminating in the opening of ʻthe first

nuclear plant in the world to supply power on a commercial rather than an

experimental basisʼ in 1956.3 As S. M. Macgill has noted, the promise of cheap

electricity allowed the British nuclear industry to promote itself as ʻa tremendous

opportunity for growth and prosperity in postwar economic developmentʼ.4 The

financial promise of nuclear technology was framed by Britainʼs significant debt

to America as a result of the Anglo-American Loan Agreement of 1946 and the

struggle to recover the nationʼs former economic strength after the Second

World War.5 While 1950s science fiction films have often been made sense of

7
as representations of American Cold War nuclear anxieties, in Britain, where

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was released in 1953, a different relationship

to nuclear technology was emerging.6

! As Paul Swann argues:

American films did not “mean” the same thing to British audiences as they did to
audiences in the United States. The two audiences drew upon very different
cultural references when they decoded these films. Consequently, the images of
America and Great Britain presented in American films could often be interpreted
on different levels - one for the American audience, one for the British. Often films
gain something, as well as losing something, in the transition/translation from
America to Britain. 7

Swannʼs overview of the reception of Hollywood cinema in post-war Britain

raises the possibility that Britons found meanings in 1950s science fictionʼs

nuclear creatures that were not necessarily available to audiences in the United

States, suggesting that perhaps traditional wisdom about the interpretation of

the genre during this era cannot go all the way towards explaining its British

reception.8 This thesis aims to explore these tensions by investigating the

relationship between British audiences and science fiction cinema during this

decade, suggesting some of the unique meanings that these genre films

acquired when watched in the specific cultural and socio-political contexts of

1950s Britain.

! Beast is not an isolated example of a 1950s science fiction film whose

interpretation as a product of American anxieties has a problematic relationship

with British public sentiment. Authors such as Susan Sontag, David J. Skal and

Cyndy Hendershot have drawn attention to the connections between a wide

range of mid-century American science fiction films and US public anxieties

about radiation and the Soviet possession of nuclear weaponry.9 Much of this

work echoes Hendershotʼs claim that American science fiction ʻfilms of the

1950s attempted to represent the nuclear threat by utilising metaphors that

helped American audiences to concretise and tame the unthinkable threat of

8
nuclear warʼ.10 Similarly, scholars have also suggested that the motif of

depersonalisation that ran throughout much of the genre during this era spoke

to US fears that communist ideologies were taking root in American suburbia.

This work has elaborated on Peter Biskindʼs argument that ʻpossession by

[alien] pods – mind stealing, brain eating and body snatching – had the added

advantage of being an overt metaphor for Communist brainwashingʼ.11

Arguments that connect 1950s science fiction cinema and contemporary US

fears have become so prominent that Mark Jancovich has argued that they,

alongside claims about the presumed patriarchy of the genre, ʻhave virtually

achieved the status of an orthodoxyʼ.12

! This level of attention to the relationship between American anxieties and

1950s science fiction cinema can perhaps be explained by the dominance of

the genre by American films. Andrew Tudor, for example, has suggested that

56.9% of the horror films released in Britain between 1931 and 1984 came from

America, but much of what Tudor deems to be horror could also be categorised

as science fiction.13 The 1950s was certainly subject to this trend and most

science fiction produced during this period came from Hollywood. M. Keith

Booker considers the 1950s a period of ʻAmerican standardization and

homogenization, as Fordist-Taylorist mass production techniques reached new

heights of sophistication and new levels of penetration into every aspect of

American lifeʼ.14 Cinema was not exempt from these forces. In this context,

genre cinema offered Hollywood a stream of ʻdependable productsʼ that could

be produced cheaply by reusing sets, costumes and props because they relied

on the ʻrepetition and variation of commercially successful formulasʼ.15 The

economic appeal of genre film production, coupled with rising public interest in

both science and space as a result of Cold War technological advances, such

9
as artificial satellites and nuclear weapons, led to the 1950s becoming an

American ʻGolden Age of science fiction filmʼ.16 While science fiction cinema

already had a long history by this point, stretching back at least as far as

Georges Mélièsʼ A Trip to the Moon (1902), the 1950s saw a greater number of

these films being produced in the United States than ever before or, perhaps,

since.17 These were films such as It Came from Outer Space (1953), The War

of the Worlds (1953), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Earth vs the

Flying Saucers (1956), Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957) and It! The Terror

from Beyond Space (1958). Other countries, too, made notable science fiction

films during the 1950s, such as Britainʼs Fiend Without a Face (1958) or the

Japanese and American collaboration Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956), a

reworked version of Japanʼs Gojira (1954), but without the developed industrial

infrastructure and financial reserves of Hollywood these nations could not

compete with the scale of American production. 1956, for example, saw the

release of twenty-five American science fiction films, with a further thirty-four

following in 1957.18 This was also the period in which science fictionʼs reputation

for making exhaustive use of new special effects technologies was solidified.

Techniques such as 3D cinematography, composite shots and stop motion

animation gave these films a distinct visual style that has since been developed

using more sophisticated tools, such as computer generated special effects.

The sheer innovativeness and volume of science fiction films being produced in

Hollywood during the 1950s makes this a key decade in the development of the

genre on screen and an important era to focus on when assessing the genreʼs

history in the west. As such, it is perhaps unsurprising that the vast majority of

scholarly writing on the science fiction cinema of the 1950 has focused on the

relationship between US films and US society.

10
! However, these films were also watched by audiences elsewhere in the

world. Britain was a very significant market for western film distributors during

the 1950s as a result of the cinemaʼs great popularity in that country. As Paul

Swann notes, in 1955 ʻannual average admissions in Great Britain were 22.7

million, down from 26.3 million in 1951ʼ.19 It is difficult to be precise about the

share of this market taken by science fiction films since British box office figures

for much of the genre, particularly its low budget films, remain elusive. However,

some suggestion of the genreʼs popularity can be gleaned from its prominence

in British cinema magazines of the era, particularly in two of the most popular of

these publications, Picturegoer and Picture Show. Alongside the great range of

previews, reviews and articles about 1950s science fiction films printed in these

magazines, and drawn on throughout this thesis, Picturegoer occasionally

published short stories that retold the plots of films such as Invasion of the Body

Snatchers and Devil Girl from Mars (1954).20 It was also not uncommon for both

magazines to present these narratives in a comic strip format, using still images

from the films.21 Picturegoer even awarded Invasion of the Body Snatchers its

Seal of Merit, a very rare honour bestowed only on films the magazine thought

particularly worthy.22 Contrary to Wheeler Winston Dixonʼs assertion that ʻ1950s

British audiences wanted horror, not science fictionʼ, the genre was deemed

popular enough to justify significant coverage in the nationʼs film magazines, a

fact that would in turn have served to further publicise these productions.23

! The popularity of American science fiction cinema in Britain is suggested

by the number and range of films exported across the Atlantic. American

classics of the genre, such as The Thing from Another World (1951), The Day

the Earth Stood Still (1951), It Came from Outer Space and Them! (1954), were

screened in Britain alongside less well known productions, such as The

11
Amazing Colossal Man (1957), The Alligator People (1959) and The Giant Gila

Monster (1959). This was part of a larger trend in 1950s British cinema-going

since, as Swann has observed, ʻin the decade after the Second World War, the

British were actually more loyal than the American cinema-goer to American

filmsʼ.24 US science fiction films thus made up a very significant portion of a

popular genre in 1950s Britain.

! Although it imported a great variety of science fiction films from America,

Britain was itself an industrious and independent producer of genre cinema

during the 1950s. Beginning in 1953 with the release of Spaceways, British

studios produced a number of varyingly successful science fiction films. Notably

in 1955, Hammer, the British studio behind Spaceways which is now most

widely famed for its distinctive brand of 1960s horror cinema, adapted The

Quatermass Experiment, a popular BBC television serial drama from 1953, into

the film The Quatermass Xperiment, a hybrid of science fiction and horror that

proved very successful both at home and in the United States.25 A sequel,

Quatermass II, followed in 1957 and received similar, if slightly more muted,

praise. Before the end of the decade a wide range of science fiction films had

been produced in Britain, ranging from the preposterous and often ignored The

Trollenberg Terror (1958) to genuine classics of the genre such as Fiend

Without a Face. These homegrown genre films were screened in Britain

alongside the influx of American science fiction content during the 1950s.

! Although science fiction films from other nations were also occasionally

distributed in Britain, the genre as it manifested in that country was

overwhelmingly American and, to a lesser extent, British. It would therefore be a

mistake for a project such as this to limit its investigation of 1950s British

science fiction reception to an exploration either domestic or American films. To

12
ignore either countryʼs productions would be to consider a false image of the

genre in 1950s Britain. There were, however, obvious differences between

British and American films, not least in terms of the actorsʼ accents and the

types of locations depicted on the screen. As a result of these factors, British

audiences might well have related to films differently because of their national

origins. As such, this thesis examines a range of different science fiction films

that were released in Britain during this decade, both British and American, but

notes where signifiers of nationality within these films might have inflected their

reception. This is most obvious during the discussion of the concept of

ʻAmerican invasionʼ that underpins a significant portion of Chapter Five, but will

also be raised elsewhere where relevant.

! As suggested above, while the films of these two countries might have

enjoyed a two-way flow across the Atlantic during the 1950s, the contexts within

which they were received in the United States and Britain were divergent. This

is true in terms of both film cultures and broader national circumstances. In

terms of cinema production and distribution, Britain was undergoing a period of

transition. As Sue Harper and Vincent Porter note, after Britain signed the

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1948 it became impossible

to continue the quota system that had previously been imposed on distributors

in order to ensure the screening of British films and the sustainability of the

British film industry.26 In this way, GATT endangered the financial wellbeing of

British studios and effectively forced them to seek American investment. This,

alongside other factors outlined by Harper and Porter, resulted in a flood of

nominally British films that were shot in Britain but were financed and produced

by American studios using key American personnel.27 To some extent, this

process served to ʻAmericanize the content of British filmsʼ.28 While this shift in

13
tone was of benefit to American exhibitors in their efforts to sell these products

in the United States, in Britain it had a different effect, altering the nature of the

countryʼs national cinema.

! There were also differences between British and American models of film

distribution during the 1950s. In America, the Paramount Decree of 1948 forced

film studios to relinquish possession of their cinemas. As Thomas Doherty

notes, ʻthe vertical integration of production, distribution, and exhibition - the

sweet monopoly that had oiled the studio machine and crushed independent

competition - was now a busted trust. By breaking the choke hold of studio

control over exhibition, the Department of Justice gave theatre owners more

autonomy over booking and programmingʼ, leading to a greater variety of films

being available to American consumers.29 In Britain, however, the range of

products offered in cinemas remained relatively tightly controlled for much of the

decade. As Harper and Porter have observed:

The principal distributors, some of whom owned their own exhibition outlets,
carefully structured the supply of films, in order to maximize their revenues. It was
only in London and the large metropolitan cities that audiences were able to
exercise an extensive choice between programmes mounted by competing
cinemas. In many provincial cities, competition was restricted to two or three circuit
cinemas which could show only their national release, while cinema-goers in small
towns often had access to only a single cinema.30

This restricted choice of films stood in contrast to the increase in the range of

products Americans could choose from during the 1950s. Similarly, American

audiences also had a greater choice about where they would go to watch films.

The 1950s was the key decade in the expansion of drive-in cinemas in the

United States, a mode of exhibition that is commonly associated with the types

of genre films that concern this thesis. By 1949, for example, there were a

thousand drive-ins in America, but this number increased to over four thousand

by the middle of the 1950s.31 In Britain, where both the cost of land and the

climate are prohibitive to outdoor film screenings, the only non-temporary drive-
14
in ever to have been constructed opened in Maidstone, Kent in the early 1980s.

It closed shortly thereafter.32 Before, during and after the 1950s, British cinemas

were almost exclusively indoor venues. As this suggests, Britons and Americans

watched 1950s science fiction cinema within very different film cultures, both in

terms of the choice of films available and the places in which they could be

consumed.

! However, the differences between Britain and America during the 1950s

ran much deeper than film culture. Despite their superficial similarities, such as

their shared belief in democracy and their hostility to the spread of communism,

highlighted through Britainʼs role as a ʻjunior partner to the USAʼ during the Cold

War, these countries found themselves in contrastive social, political and

economic situations in the 1950s.33 In terms of economics, the Second World

War had seen the US emerge from the Great Depression and the 1950s had

brought a great boom in the production of consumer products.34 GDP increased

by 43.4 per cent over the decade.35 Between 1950 and 1960 the percentage of

Americans earning $10,000 or more increased from nine to thirty.36 This

increase in wealth allowed the country to better look after its citizensʼ needs.

State and local government spending on education, for example, increased by

seven per cent in 1950 alone and that year saw seventy-eight per cent of

children between the ages of five and nineteen enrolled in school.37 Meanwhile,

Britain faced significant economic challenges. Although the countryʼs per capita

GDP increased by just over two fifths between 1950 and 1960, Barry Supple

has noted that ʻduring the post-war decades the British economy certainly did

decline in relative terms: the rates of growth of its total and per capita GDP were

persistently lower than those of its rivalsʼ.38 Indeed, at the dawn of the decade

per capita GDP in America was ʻnearly one half higher again than Britainʼ.39 As

15
Andrew Rosen indicates, Britainʼs ʻshare of world trade in manufactured

productsʼ fell from thirty per cent shortly after the Second World War to twenty

five per cent in 1950 and fourteen per cent by 1964.40 Unemployment also

presented a gradually worsening picture throughout the decade and beyond,

rising from an average of 1.67 per cent during the 1950s to 2.03 per cent in the

1960s.41 These economic problems manifested in British homes. In 1956, for

example, only eight per cent of British households owned a refrigerator.42 In

terms of the availability of foodstuffs in Britain, Rosen notes that ʻthe

groundbreaking innovations of the 1950s did not bring about widespread results

until the prosperity and innovative spirit of the 1960sʼ.43 While Americaʼs

economy expanded dramatically during the 1950s, allowing its citizens a better

quality of life, things remained tough for many Britons as the nationʼs financial

recovery from the Second World War was comparatively slow.

! Alongside its expanding economy, the United States itself expanded

during the 1950s with two former America territories, Hawaii and Alaska,

receiving statehood in 1959. The US began the decade as a country of 151.5

million people.44 During the 1950s this population grew by 18.5 per cent.45 By

way of contrast, the British Empire shrank dramatically during the same decade.

The 1940s saw the pace of decolonisation increase and during the 1950s

independence was won by Sudan, the Gold Coast (now Ghana) and the

Federation of Malaya (now part of Malaysia), with Nigeria also taking significant

steps towards freedom. As such, notions of Britain and Britishness were rapidly

evolving as the nation was faced with questions about what it would become

without the Empire that it had ruled and expanded for several centuries. Britain

faced the dissolution of the cornerstone upon which so much of its former power

had depended while America expanded both its population and its own borders.

16
! Moreover, America largely remained a racially homogenous country

during the 1950s, a period when ninety per cent of Americans were white and

only about seven per cent had been born overseas.46 While the first significant

waves of mass immigration into the US did not begin until the mid-1960s, Britain

underwent dramatic demographic shifts during this period.47 When post-war

labour shortages began to bite, Britain turned to its remaining and former

colonial territories to source workers. The number of Indians and Pakistanis

living in Britain, for example, rose from 17,300 to 55,000 between 1957 and

1958.48 These early waves of mass immigration caused increasing racial

tensions in Britain, culminating in the 1958 race riots in Nottingham and Notting

Hill. Consequently, while America in the 1950s could be characterised as

predominantly white, prosperous and expanding, Britain saw increased

immigration and ensuing racial tensions, the erosion of its financial

competitiveness and the continued disintegration of its Empire.

! This divergence of national circumstances suggests that British and

American responses to 1950s science fiction cinema might well have differed

since key issues in these films, such as Otherness, invasion and the future,

were likely to have been understood differently in these two countries. Peter

Hutchings has suggested something of the potential for British audiences to

respond to these films in different ways to their American counterparts in his

discussion of 1950s science fictionʼs invasion narratives. For Hutchings, these

films were well suited to articulating the concerns of ʻa social and cultural

context which has become relativised and less sure of itselfʼ and so found

particular resonance during this era as the result of ʻa number of shifts and new

trends in the west, most notably a growing affluence and materialism coupled

with a widespread sense that traditional values were increasingly being brought

17
into questionʼ.49 However, as Hutchings notes, ʻthese various changes did not

manifest themselves uniformly across the western world. Consumerism, for

example, meant something different in America from what it did in Britain (where

it was often associated with anxieties about the alleged undue influence of

American culture on the British way of life)ʼ.50 While Hutchings uses these

national differences to explore ʻthe socially and historically specific pressures

exerted upon the fantasies by the context within which they were producedʼ, this

project builds on his observation by noting that the same pressures were

present in the contexts in which these films were received.51 As suggested

above, British society was party to a different, and differently articulated, set of

concerns than its American counterpart during the 1950s. In light of these

differences, cultural products, such as science fiction films, might have been

understood in different ways.

! However, while Hutchings has taken these divergent national

circumstances into account, the academic discussion of 1950s science fiction

films has largely focused on their relationship to American society, as noted

earlier.52 Perhaps as a result, popular British accounts of the genre, for example

in film magazines, have tended to discuss the meanings that scholars have

suggested American audiences found in these films as if they were

unambiguous and universal. In May 1978, John Brosnan wrote in Starburst, a

British genre film periodical, that science fiction cinema from the 1950s was

essentially about ʻthe fear of communist subversionʼ, ʻatomic radiationʼ and ʻthe

Bombʼ.53 While these were significant issues in 1950s Britain, Chapters Two

and Four of this thesis show that the national response to them was more

complicated than mere fear. Brosnanʼs argument implicitly applies the claims of

scholars who only sought to explore American responses to these films to

18
audiences in Starburstʼs native Britain without consideration of their different

contexts of reception. Similarly, in 2007 Total Film magazine claimed that ʻthe

prevailing winds of the '50s were measured with a Geiger counterʼ and that the

science fiction cinema of the era mirrored these nuclear anxieties.54 While this

may have been true in America, the opening of this Introduction suggested that

many Britons saw the 1950s as an era of nuclear promise rather than nuclear

panic, indicating that other readings of these films might have been possible.

Given that Total Film is a British publication, one might have expected it to

reflect something of the specificity of this nationʼs response to the genre.

However, at the time of this articleʼs publication little research into the British

reception history of 1950s science fiction cinema had been performed and so

assumptions about the similarity of western audiences allowed claims intended

to explain the American response to these films to be applied to British

audiences.

! These American readings of 1950s science fiction cinema have also

emerged in British online commentary, again with no mention of their original

intention to explore only the relationship between US audiences and the genre

cinema of the era. Martin Barber, for example, recently claimed on the BBCʼs

Norfolk website that ʻmuch has been written about the connection between the

sci-fi cinema of the 1950s and 1960s and the Cold War, where fear of invasion,

communism and nuclear war was played out in films that projected the anxieties

of the present onto the futureʼ.55 Similar arguments have also appeared on

more populist websites, suggesting their penetration of the British public

consciousness. Ryan Lambie, writing for Britainʼs popular Den of Geek genre

entertainment website, has claimed that Invasion of the Body Snatchers

reflected ʻthe 50s “reds under the bed” era of communist paranoiaʼ, while

19
Invaders from Mars (1954) ʻcaptured the 50s fear of communismʼ.56 These films

were certainly produced during a time when their native America was gripped

with anti-communist sentiment, but Chapter Two of this thesis suggests that

these anxieties might not have been quite as widespread or uniform in Britain.

For British websites such as these to note only the American contextual

framework within which 1950s science fiction cinema was understood obscures

the range of other readings made possible by the specificities of its relationship

to British public debates.

! British online discussion forums also provide an insight into the extent to

which Americo-centric presumptions about 1950s science fiction films have

been adopted by the public. In 2007, for example, a post was made on the

Science Fiction Fantasy Chronicles forum claiming that ʻthe Atomic Age...was a

time where science was developing at quite a rate what with Nuclear power and

so forth, and gave birth to an abundance of sci fi movies etcʼ.57 Also in 2007, a

poster on The Student Room, a British discussion forum for university students,

claimed to be ʻdoing preliminary reading for my dissertation, in which I am going

to write about science-fiction films from the 1950s and their contemporary

remakes, looking at aspects of communism, postmodernism and the historical,

social and political contexts of these filmsʼ.58 While these comments do not tie

1950s science fiction films to American anxieties in an overt manner, they also

do not allude to the British public debates that might have framed their

interpretation, such as immigration, race or imperial decline. As such, they

implicitly situate 1950s science fiction cinema within an interpretive framework

dictated by US concerns. Although it is not possible to know the nationality of

these posters for certain, the websites mentioned above are targeted at a

British audience and they commonly feature a British slant. There is, of course,

20
no reason why British publications and websites should only discuss British film

reception, but the fact that no consideration of this perspective emerges from

these accounts, or from the vast majority of similar commentary, suggests that

there is generally little public awareness of the differences between British and

American audiences of 1950s science fiction films. To some extent, the

meanings that scholars have suggested were attributed to the genre in the

United States are now considered to apply more broadly despite the different

national contexts within which these films were watched.

! This situation bears similarities to Bill Nivenʼs concept of the globalisation

of memory, a phrase that refers to the ways in which the memories of the

people of one nation are adopted and shared by the people of another.59 Niven

explores this concept in reference to ʻHolocaust memoryʼ, arguing that ʻwe live

in an age in which...Holocaust memory is being shared by more and more

countriesʼ, thereby allowing this European atrocity to become a discursive site

through which nations around the world can give voice to ʻtheir own

suffering...inflicted not by the Germans but, say, by the Soviets, the Turks, or

former colonial powersʼ.60 According to Niven, this process has had dramatic

consequences for Germany. He argues that ʻthe global sharing of Holocaust

memory and its use to stimulate concern at other genocides does represent a

release of pressure on Germany. This, in turn, opens up a space in which the

rediscovery of German suffering can thriveʼ.61 Niven uses this German national

depressurisation, resulting from the globalisation of Holocaust memory, as a

means of explaining recent interest in the suffering of ordinary Germans during

the Second World War when previously they had been popularly considered

victimisers, not victims. Consequently, in Nivenʼs example at least, the

21
globalisation of memory serves a positive purpose in that it allows the burden of

memorialisation to be shared and new historical narratives to be explored.

! The beneficial potential of this process is predicated on the international

adoption of European Holocaust memory serving to galvanise the remembrance

of local traumas in countries around the world, but in other, less extreme

examples of the globalisation of memory local perspectives have been

subsumed rather than stimulated. In the much more mundane context of the

debates about readings of 1950s science fiction films, there has only been

limited consideration of the meanings attributed to both foreign and domestic

science fiction films by audiences in Britain, as I outline further in the following

chapter. As such, there exists the danger that the well documented and widely

recognised American memories of 1950s science fiction cinema will obscure

rather than inspire interest in the genreʼs British reception history, as suggested

by the examples of British commentary on these films provided above. In such

circumstances, the globalisation of memory that does not stimulate parallel local

debates manifests as a type of slippage, wherein what was once claimed of

American audiences and American films comes to be understood in more

general terms than was initially intended.62

! To limit this type of slippage the current project seeks to demonstrate the

existence of a unique British reception history of 1950s science fiction cinema

that cannot be explained through the readings that critics have suggested

American audiences found in these films. By highlighting the specificity of the

relationship between the genre and British society, this thesis stresses the need

to recognise the geographical limitations of existing readings of mid-century

science fiction films to avoid obscuring histories of their international reception.

This does not represent a dismissive challenge to dominant, Americo-centric

22
interpretations of 1950s science fiction cinema, but rather a call for greater

recognition of the often forgotten limits of their applicability in the context of the

international distribution of these films.

! Redressing this slippage matters for a number of reasons. Today Britain

remains a key territory for the exportation of American films, with Hollywood

taking eighty-four per cent of the British market in 2004.63 Indeed, Britain has

retained its close ties with America in a number of ways since the 1950s.

Drawing on the notion of an ʻAnglo-American shared identityʼ that is ʻrooted in a

common history, common philosophy and cultural foundationsʼ, James Sperling

has pointed out that America and Britain have enjoyed a close relationship ʻon

issues of war, peace, and global orderʼ.64 However, in recent years Britons have

become increasingly paranoid about their status ʻas the interlocutors between

America and Europeʼ, with the result that ʻattentive British foreign policy elites

experience a crisis of confidence and fearʼ whenever this position is perceived

to be threatened.65 These tensions and anxieties about the so-called ʻspecial

relationshipʼ, alongside ongoing unease about Britainʼs seeming subservience

to American post-9/11 foreign policy, particularly in Iraq, have produced ʻa

gradual reassessment of priorities and stakes on both sidesʼ, leading to the

apparent transformation of the Anglo-American partnership ʻinto a more

pragmatic relationship without the traditional emotional baggageʼ.66 At this

particular historical moment, when the differences and similarities between

these two nations are being renegotiated with potentially significant

consequences for both countries, the current thesisʼ desire to explore the nature

of Britain and Americaʼs supposedly shared cultural history, drawing attention to

one particular site at which popular perception has disguised points of

divergence, takes on particular significance.

23
! There is also a broader intellectual context which signals the importance

of a project such as this. The globalisation of American memories of 1950s

science fiction cinema can be understood as a symptom of what Erich Fromm

has termed humanityʼs ʻfear of freedomʼ.67 Writing during the Second World

War, Fromm reflects on the rise of fascist dictatorships in Europe and ʻthe

dangers which they imply for the greatest achievements of modern culture -

individuality and uniqueness of personalityʼ.68 For Fromm, ʻmodern European

and American history is centred around the effort to gain freedom from the

political, economic, and spiritual shackles that have bound menʼ.69 In these

terms, the First World War ʻwas regarded by many as the final struggle and its

conclusion the ultimate victory for freedomʼ.70 However, Fromm expresses

concern that ʻonly a few years elapsed before new systems emerged which

denied everything that men believed they had won in centuries of struggleʼ.71

The submission of millions of ordinary people to the rule of fascist dictators in

Europe during the 1930s and 1940s represented a wilful retreat from the

freedom that humanity had so long struggled for. Consequently, Fromm argues

that ʻif we want to fight Fascism we must understand itʼ and sets out to explore

the psychology that underpins humanityʼs apparent desire to relinquish its

freedom.72

! Finding that freedom can lead an individual to suffer feelings of

existential ʻaloneness and powerlessnessʼ, Fromm suggests that ʻwe are ready

to get rid of our individual self either by submission to new forms of authority or

by a compulsive conforming to accepted patternsʼ.73 He discusses three means

by which we seek to minimise our exposure to these negative aspects of

freedom, one of which is the human tendency towards the ʻsuppression of

critical thinkingʼ.74 To demonstrate how this is enacted in our daily lives, Fromm

24
gives the example of the different responses that people might give when asked

for their opinion about what kind of weather should be expected later in the

day.75 While some might use their knowledge of the current weather conditions

to make an educated guess about what might happen, others might admit their

lack of expertise but explain that they had heard a forecast that predicted

certain conditions. Others still would feel compelled to have their own opinion

and so would repeat the forecast that they had heard while simultaneously

forgetting that they were ʻsimply repeating somebody elseʼs authoritative

opinionʼ.76 The person in the final category ʻhas the illusion of having arrived at

an opinion of his own, but in reality he has merely adopted an authorityʼs

opinion without being aware of this processʼ.77 For Fromm, this is the same

mechanism through which newspapers are able to influence their readers. He

argues that if one were to ʻask an average newspaper reader what he thinks

about a certain political questionʼ then ʻhe will give you as “his” opinion a more

or less exact account of what he has read, and yet...he believes that what he is

saying is the result of his own thinkingʼ.78 Through these examples, Fromm

outlines what he sees as a fundamental human drive to submit to an external

authority and suggests that suppressing our capacity for original or critical

thought by subconsciously adopting the opinions of that authority as our own is

one means by which this is achieved.

! In this sense, Fromm was concerned with the dangers of the human

desire to accept and internalise received wisdom without question, a process

that can be readily observed in the globalisation of American memories of

1950s science fiction cinema. As demonstrated above, claims about the

reception of these films in America have to some extent been implicitly applied

to British audiences despite their inability to speak to the responses of cinema-

25
goers in that country. In this sense, one could argue that these interpretations

have been accepted unquestioningly as a form of received wisdom. This

suggests that the globalisation of American readings of 1950s science fiction

films has necessitated the suppression of our capacity for critical thinking, in

keeping with Frommʼs argument. By failing to challenge the limitations of this

example of the globalisation of memory, the popular understanding of these

films has succumbed to what Fromm terms ʻpseudo thinkingʼ, the uncritical

adoption of opinions from an external authority.79 In this case, the authority in

question is those scholars and figures in public debate who have either applied

US readings of 1950s science fiction cinema more broadly than is tenable or

who have left room for ambiguity about the geographic limitations of their

claims.

! Of course, some scholars, such as Cyndy Hendershot and M. Keith

Booker, have taken care to stress that their interest in the genre is centred on its

relationship to US society, making the globalisation of their conclusions less

likely. Hendershot states explicitly on the first page of her book that she is

concerned with ʻwhat constituted cultural paranoia for postwar Americaʼ, while

the title of Bookerʼs monograph, Monsters, Mushroom Clouds, and the Cold

War: American Science Fiction and the Roots of Postmodernism, suggests his

focus on the United States.80 However, there has also been a comparative lack

of precision in the work of other authors, such as Benjamin Shapiro who

discusses the place of these films in ʻour cultureʼ, ostensibly referring to America

but leaving room for ambiguity about whether his claims can be applied to the

entirety of North American culture, western culture or even, in an extreme

misreading of his intentions, human culture in general.81 Particularly notable in

26
this regard have been attempts to characterise the 1950s without reference to

the differences between nations. For example, Melvin E. Matthews tells us:

The science fiction boom of the ʻ50s owed its existence to several reasons: World
War II and the advent of the atomic bomb; a change in the publicʼs attitude towards
scientists, which elevated such figures as Wernher von Braun and Albert Einstein
to celebrity status; the Cold War between East and West, and Soviet and American
competition in rocket technology; anxiety over nuclear war and paranoia over
communist subversion; and the “flying saucer” scare. Consequently, ʻ50s science
fiction films were characterized by several themes: the atomic bomb and its
consequences; the effects of atomic radiation; alien invasion and alien possession;
and world destruction.82

Matthews provides a broad characterisation of both the decade itself and its

science fiction cinema without noting the Americo-centricity of his claims. As

suggested above and in the following chapters, his argument does not

adequately describe the British experience of the era. Matthews references

Biskindʼs work as the source of these claims and there is certainly room for

confusion in Biskindʼs suggestion that the films that he discusses ʻreflect the

particular constraints of the fifties cultural and political climateʼ.83 This argument

is only later grounded in his focus on US society. In these examples, Biskind,

Matthews and Shapiro provide room for unnecessary confusion about the

extent to which claims about the American reception of 1950s science fiction

films can be applied to the audiences of other nations, leaving scope for the

globalisation of their conclusions and the consequent emergence of pseudo

thought.

! This thesis seeks to redress this type of pseudo thought by meeting a

number of aims. Its immediate goals are to examine the types of readings that

were available to British audiences of 1950s US science fiction films,

demonstrating that these were not the same readings performed by their

American counterparts, and to show that British science fiction films were able

to hold particular meanings for their domestic audiences that were unlikely to

occur to American viewers upon their international distribution. Through

27
performing these tasks, the thesis highlights the specificity of British

interpretations of the genre, offering an alternative to the popular perception that

during this era these films functioned predominantly as reflections of American

concerns about nuclear technology and communism. In turn, this undermines

the globalisation of American readings of these films by robustly demonstrating

the existence of a unique British reception history of 1950s science fiction

cinema, thereby exposing the fallacy of the type of pseudo thought that has

become established in the popular understanding of the genre.

! The problems with which this thesis grapples, then, necessarily emerge

from the ways in which the observations made in critical debates about 1950s

science fiction films have been, or at least stand the potential to be,

overextended. Therefore, in order to provide an adequate sense of the contexts

in which my arguments will be made, it is necessary to perform a thorough

survey of the scholarly literature that has addressed 1950s science fiction

cinema. The characterisation of these debates presented in this Introduction

has been necessarily broad and descriptive, seeking to provide an overview of

the topic rather than a deep and expansive exploration of the scholarship that

this thesis sits in dialogue with. The first half of Chapter One expands on this by

offering a literature review that surveys the output of the key writers in the study

of 1950s science fiction cinema and demonstrates how this project is situated in

relation to their work. The review divides its material into three categories. The

first constitutes what Lincoln Geraghty, developing a claim made originally by

Mark Jancovich, has termed the ʻcritical orthodoxyʼ that surrounds these film.84

This term refers to the dominant focus of the body of literature that has

discussed 1950s US science fiction films on their relationship to American

anxieties about communist infiltration, but, as this section shows, it could also

28
be extended to encompass the equally prominent interpretations that relate the

genre to US fears of nuclear technology. Debates about these issues began

with observations about global audiences, but academics have largely been

most interested in developing our understanding of their implications for

American science fiction production and reception. This has inadvertently left a

gap in our knowledge about the reception of these films in countries such as

Britain, which has in turn permitted the globalisation of American readings to fill

the hole.

! The second section of this chapter demonstrates that alternatives to

Geraghtyʼs orthodoxy exist by surveying a number of studies that have found

different ways of reading 1950s US science fiction cinema. A broad range of

work has shown that it is possible to consider these films through a variety of

intellectual frameworks, opening the door for the current project to further

diversify the readings of the genre that have been produced by considering an

aspect of its history that has largely been overlooked, namely its British

reception. However, such attempts to broaden the debate about 1950s US

science fiction cinema have largely remained embryonic and have not been

developed to the same extent as arguments about the relationship between

these films and communism and nuclear technology. As such, the dominant

focus on these issues still exists, despite the alternatives available, and

continues to inform much of the discussion of the genre, both academic and

popular.

! The third section of the chapter turns its attention to a parallel body of

literature that has considered British science fiction cinema of the 1950s. A

number of authors have already begun the task of outlining the specificity of the

history of these films, but to date their work has focused on production rather

29
than reception contexts. There remains a need for a project such as this not

only to explore the reception history of these films, but also to bring together

debates about the reception of British and American productions.

! Chapter One continues to elaborate on the contexts within which this

thesis operates by examining how the methodological approach that it employs

has emerged out of intellectual developments in fields such as cinema

semiotics, the New Film History and transnational cultural transmission. These

areas of study have shaped my understanding of the relationship between films

and historically, culturally and geographically specific audiences. The second

half of this chapter thus explains what I mean when I discuss the ʻaudienceʼ and

how I will perform my investigation into the ways in which it interpreted 1950s

science fiction cinema. These sections explain that, given the limited available

evidence of the responses of 1950s British cinema-goers to science fiction, this

thesis must instead explore how what Barbara Klinger terms a filmʼs ʻdiscursive

surroundʼ shapes its interpretation.85 This phrase describes the discursive

contexts within which a film is received. In this sense, the methodology

employed here draws on recent work within the intellectual context of the New

Film History, an approach to the study of film production and reception that has

been heavily informed by Janet Staigerʼs historical materialist-influenced

ʻcontext-activated theoriesʼ of interpretation.86 As the second half of Chapter

One explains, what is presented in this thesis is not a study of actual audiences,

since such a project would be critically hampered by the lack of surviving

evidence of such cinema-goers, but rather an exploration of their likely or

potential interpretations of 1950s science fiction cinema given the contexts

within which it was received. These sections thus cover topics such as the types

of evidence that will be used during this investigation, the types of claims that

30
the available sources will enable it to make, the limitations of its approach and

the ways in which these limitations can be managed. Consequently, Chapter

One concludes with a description of the methods of analysis employed during

the remaining chapters and an explanation of how these methods allow the

thesis to meet the goals described above.

! The remainder of the thesis presents its main arguments and findings.

This material has been divided into two sections. Since this project is interested

in differentiating the British response to 1950s science fiction films from the

American response discussed in the majority of the critical literature outlined

during the first part of Chapter One, this thesis addresses the two key themes

that have emerged from those debates, namely nuclear technology and fears of

communist infiltration, and reframes them through a 1950s British perspective.

As such, Section A, which comprises Chapter Two and Chapter Three, explores

how the meanings available to British audiences of 1950s science fiction

cinema were inflected by the ways in which the threat of communist infiltration

and other types of perceived invasion were seen in Britain. Section B, which

constitutes Chapter Four and Chapter Five, examines how Britons understood

the presentation of science in 1950s science fiction films through public debates

about nuclear technology and other significant topics with which the genre

intersected. Sections A and B each directly engage with one of the key themes

in the scholarly analysis of 1950s science fiction cinema, demonstrating that

both communism and nuclear technology were framed in Britain by public

debates that were specific to that country. Consequently, I show that the ways in

which these issues inflected interpretations of science fiction films were not the

same on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

31
! The chapters that constitute Section A and Section B seek to present

their material in such a way as to provide a balanced assessment of the issues

that they tackle. As I argue in Chapter One, my analysis must avoid totalising

the British national audience and so has been organised in such a way as to

allow for an examination of the different perspectives that were represented

within 1950s Britain.87 Consequently, each chapter is divided in two with each

half providing evidence of a contrasting outlook on the topic in question. This

material is used to produce two different interpretations of the case study films

analysed in each chapter, thereby accounting for something of the range of

perspectives present in mid-century Britain. Furthermore, as well as reflecting

the diversity of 1950s British film society, I also account for the diversity of the

science fiction films that it consumed. As noted above, the majority of the films

of this genre screened in Britain were either British or American. Consequently,

each chapter will use the range of British perspectives that it addresses to

explore two case study films, one British and one American. In this way, some

of the various attitudes represented within the 1950s British national audience

together with a suggestion of the array of science fiction films that this audience

watched are accounted for in this thesis.

! Chapter Two begins my exploration of the meanings that Britons found in

1950s science fiction cinema by discussing how British attitudes to the potential

threat of communist infiltration shaped the ways in which Britons negotiated the

various alien invasions that the genre depicted during this era. Drawing on

Peter Biskindʼs suggestion that the possession or replication of human bodies

by extraterrestrials in the eraʼs depersonalisation narratives functioned as a

metaphor for communist brainwashing in the American public imagination, this

chapter takes as its case studies two films in which alien invaders infiltrate a

32
society by hijacking the identities and mimicking or possessing the bodies of

their victims.88 It Came from Outer Space, an American film from 1957, sees the

residents of Sand Rock, Arizona, gradually falling under the control of an alien

who has crash-landed out in the desert, while Quatermass II, a British film from

the same year that was adapted from a television serial drama produced by the

BBC in 1955, finds high level public figures becoming possessed by a covert

alien invasion force. Both films contain good examples of the tropes that Biskind

identifies as paranoid fantasies of communist infiltration. However, the historical

evidence presented in this chapter suggests that Britons understood

communism as a threat to Establishment figures, such as politicians and civil

servants, rather than a threat to the community, as was the case in America.

While Britons might also have understood 1950s depersonalisation narratives

as metaphors for communist infiltration, as a result of these divergent national

debates the reading strategies that they employed to uncover these meanings

were not the same as those used by their American counterparts. Chapter Two

thus demonstrates that, even when similar readings of 1950s science fiction

films were produced in Britain and America, the differences between these

countries ensured that they were not produced in the same manner. In addition,

this chapter also complicates these issues by exploring the meanings that these

films might have held for Britons who were sympathetic towards or supportive of

communism, thereby accounting for a different British perspective on the

genreʼs depersonalisation narratives.

! Chapter Three steps away from communism altogether and recasts

notions of invasion and the Other in terms of a uniquely British 1950s public

debate. With the days of Empire coming to a close and Britain experiencing its

first waves of mass immigration by citizens of its remaining colonies and the

33
Commonwealth of Nations, the 1950s was an era when race came to the

forefront of the British national consciousness and what Robert Miles has

termed the process of ʻracialisationʼ, or of recognising and apportioning

significance to differences in skin colour, gained a foothold.89 As this chapter

shows, many of the most widely read newspapers of the time framed the arrival

of significant numbers of Commonwealth and colonial citizens in Britain as an

ʻinvasionʼ of sorts, despite the fact that these economic migrants were actively

recruited by British authorities to fill labour shortages. This was a perception

predicated on the popular but misconceived notion that Britain was a country of

white people subjected to an infiltration of black newcomers. Of course, as

Peter Fryer has indicated, black people had lived in Britain ʻfor close on 500

yearsʼ and had ʻbeen born in Britain since about the year 1505ʼ, but in the

1950s this history was obscured behind national panic about a perceived

ʻinvasionʼ from Britainʼs former and remaining colonies.90 As a result, for many

Britons race was partially understood through the categories of the national Self

and the invading Other.

! Chapter Three uses this as a background against which to discuss the

meanings that Britons might have found in the juxtaposition of the human Self

and the alien Other in the eraʼs science fiction films. This chapter consequently

suggests two specifically British readings of two films that were released in the

particularly pressurised weeks that followed the 1958 Notting Hill race riots in

London, It! The Terror from Beyond Space and The Trollenberg Terror. The first

of these readings sees the alien as a threatening invader that gave voice to

1950s British concerns about race and immigration while the other finds in

these films a call for recognition of the fact that, underneath their superficial

differences, the Self and the Other, whether they are categories predicated on

34
race or on planetary origins, are essentially the same. These are readings that

result directly from the form taken by much of the racialised debate evident in

Britain during and after the national trauma of the events in Notting Hill, and so

constitute specifically British responses to these films that could not have taken

quite the same shape in other countries, particularly in the United States where,

as discussed above, the early waves of mass immigration did not begin until the

1960s.

! Section A thus reconsiders the role of the Other, most often linked to US

fears of communist infiltration in America by the critical orthodoxy that surrounds

these films, in producing meaning in the eraʼs science fiction cinema through

the lens of British public debate. Section B performs a similar analysis of the

other key concern of American readings of these films, namely nuclear

technology. Beginning this task, Chapter Four demonstrates that Britons had a

complex and multifaceted relationship with the atomic age. Many Britons were

as disturbed as their American counterparts by what Cyndy Hendershot has

described as ʻthe atomic bomb and its psychological and physiological effectsʼ,

but I suggest in this chapter that these fears were often articulated through and

amalgamated with memories of the nationʼs experience of bombardment during

the Blitz.91 As such, Chapter Four begins by suggesting that, while many Britons

would have had concerns similar to those of many Americans about the atomic

age, these fears emerged out of differently inflected anxieties and so produced

differently inflected readings of the eraʼs genre films. This is demonstrated

through an analysis of this chapterʼs two case study films, It Came from

Beneath the Sea (1955) and Behemoth the Sea Monster (1959), released in

America as The Giant Behemoth.

35
! Conversely, the second half of Chapter Four considers those Britons for

whom the dawning atomic age was not a threat but a promise. Many believed

that Britainʼs post-war economic problems could be solved by embracing

nuclear science and applying it, for example, in the fields of medicine, industry

and energy production. For audiences who saw nuclear technology in this light,

films such as Beneath the Sea and Behemoth were able to offer a variety of

positive messages about the application of all things atomic, thereby reinforcing

official messages about the benefits that this type of research could bring to the

country. Once again, the image that emerges from this chapter is of a diverse

national audience whose members held a range of different viewpoints. The

consequent readings of 1950s science fiction that Chapter Four suggests are

necessarily contradictory, but each nonetheless emerges from a particular

stance on the issue of nuclear technology that was taken by Britons during the

1950s, and as such they all represent specifically British responses to these

films.

! The final chapter of this thesis, Chapter Five, performs a similar task to

Chapter Three in that it moves the sectionʼs focus away from how Britons

related to important American issues, to the types of issues that were of

particular significance to Britons themselves. In this sense, while Chapter Four

discusses the role of nuclear science in shaping the meaning of 1950s science

fiction films in Britain, Chapter Five examines the readings of these films

influenced by the ways in which science in science fiction cinema was

understood in mid-century Britain in more general terms. This requires a slightly

different approach to that taken in previous chapters. Instead of examining the

case study films through two different perspectives on a single issue, two

different issues that were prominent in 1950s Britain are used to frame the

36
presentation of science in these films. The benefit of this minor alteration to the

format of Chapter Five is that it allows for a demonstration of the flexibility of

science as a metaphor in these films, showing how it enabled them to be

understood through a range of other debates. The aim of discussing different

perspectives in the earlier chapters is to account for the diversity of viewpoints

in 1950s Britain, a goal that is also fulfilled here by accounting for the variety of

different debates through which science in science fiction cinema was

understood. The first half of Chapter Five examines science fiction films as one

site through which public concerns about British post-imperial decline and

American post-war ascendency could be negotiated. As fears for Britainʼs

international significance were underlined by the humiliation that was suffered

as a result of the Suez Crisis in 1956, so the perception began to take root that

America was benefitting from British dependency. British newspapers talked of

an American cultural invasion of Europe and economic tensions emerged

between the transatlantic allies. This chapter argues that films such as Fiend

Without a Face and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers allowed Britons to explore

these concerns because they used science as one means of comparing the

relative success of different nations. For example, while Flying Saucers sees

America and Britain facing an alien invasion force, it is America alone that

possesses the scientific knowledge necessary to repel the creatures. As such,

the first half of Chapter Five argues that science was not only significant in

1950s science fiction films in its own right, but also served as a mouthpiece for

other concerns, especially Britainʼs anxieties about its global standing.

! The second half of this chapter draws attention to the role of science

during the cinematic experience itself. Science fiction was a genre that took

particular advantage of new developments in the production and projection of

37
films, becoming part of the post-war fantasy of a new world created by science.

New cinematographic techniques, such as 3D and CinemaScope, changed the

ways in which audiences related to the cinematic image, while masters of the

science fiction genre, such as Ray Harryhausen and George Pal, used special

effects in inventive ways to create the illusion that the genre itself was on the

cutting edge of science, even if the techniques through which this impression

was imparted had been in use for decades. As such, attending the cinema

became a science fictional experience, appearing as an encounter with the

limits of human ingenuity and capability. At the same time, Britons were being

told through various sources that new scientific breakthroughs were about to

make their lives better in a number of different ways. Newsreels of the era,

discussed at some length in the chapter itself, depicted Britain as a place where

scientific research was about to provide real, tangible benefits to ordinary

people. As such, the notion emerges that science fiction films, which were, of

course, often narratively concerned with science, were also a site at which this

coming scientific utopia could be experienced. They allowed British cinemas to

appear to be in the very vanguard of Britainʼs promised new age.

! Chapter Five thus suggests that science in science fiction cinema

became a multifaceted site of public debate in 1950s Britain, capable of giving

voice to both hopes and fears for the nationʼs future. As a result, science fiction

films such as Fiend Without a Face and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers were open

to a number of different interpretations in Britain, for example as icons of a

coming scientific age or as worrying visions of a world where British scientific

expertise was in relative decline. Crucially, however, each of these perspectives

on the meaning of science in 1950s science fiction cinema emerges out of an

38
understanding of the ways in which the British public related to the issues at

stake, and as such represents a uniquely British approach to these films.

! The common link between the arguments made in these chapters is that

they each use the presentation of particular issues in public debate in 1950s

Britain as the contextual framework through which to investigate the ways that

science fiction cinema came to be understood. Sometimes the differences

between the British readings of these films presented in this thesis and the

American interpretations offered by the majority of scholarly writing to date are

significant and sometimes they are minor. Importantly, however, differences

between the British and American reception of these films do emerge. What is

demonstrated by these differences, both in the readings themselves and in the

ways in which they were derived, is that there did exist a distinct British

response to 1950s science fiction cinema. This thesis consequently offers an

alternative to the application of conclusions derived from US audiences to

broader geographical contexts than they were initially intended to explain. By

suggesting some of the ways in which Britons made sense of 1950s science

fiction films, this research reduces the need to use Americo-centric readings of

the genre to address the experiences of British audiences. This thesis

consequently not only renders visible an often overlooked aspect of the cultural

history of mid-century science fiction cinema, but also expands our

understanding of these films in the hope of resisting the globalisation of their US

interpretations and reducing the reliance on pseudo thought that this practice

has necessitated.

39
Notes
1 See, for example, Henrikson, Margot A. 1997. Dr. Strangeloveʼs America: Society and Culture
in the Atomic Age. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. pp.56-57 and
Hendershot, Cyndy. 1999. Paranoia, the Bomb and 1950s Science Fiction Films. Bowling
Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. p.77.
2 Sontag, Susan. 2004. ʻThe Imagination of Disasterʼ, in Redmond (2004: 40-47). (Originally
published in 1965). See, for example, Wojcik, Daniel. 1997. The End of the World as We Know
It: Faith, Fatalism, and Apocalypse in America. New York: New York University Press. p.110;
and Booker, M. Keith. 2005. ʻScience Fiction and the Cold Warʼ, in Seed (2005: 171-184). p.
176.
3Chapman, Keith. 2000. ʻEnergyʼ, in Gardiner and Matthews (2000: 32-60). p.43. (Originally
published in 1982).
4Macgill, S. M. 1987. Sellafieldʼs Cancer-link Controversy: The Politics of Anxiety. London: Pion
Limited. p.12.
5The term ʻAmericaʼ is used in this thesis to denote the United States of America, not the
continent of North America as is sometimes the case.
6 American films were often exported to Britain some time after their domestic release. Since
this thesis is interested in the responses of British audiences, all release dates provided
represent the year in which they entered circulation in Britain. However, films were distributed
across a range of different types of British cinemas in different regions at different times, rather
than the simultaneous nationwide release model that is now the norm for significant British and
Hollywood productions. As such, it can be difficult to identify a firm British release date for some
of these films. Where no such date is available, the year in which the film was passed by the
British Board of Film Censors, a process that often immediately preceded its release, is
provided.
7Swann, Paul. 1987. The Hollywood Feature Film in Postwar Britain. Beckenham: Croom Helm.
p.5.
8 Any discussion of British national reception will encounter issues of totalisation and
terminology. While I address the problems with discussing a cohesive national audience in
Chapter One of this thesis, it is worth briefly explaining my use of the term ʻBritishʼ. This word is
often considered to be ideologically weighted because it implies a common identity for the
people of Wales, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland. However, this thesis largely
discusses issues that were relevant across Great Britain and Northern Ireland, rather than being
specific to particular constituent nations. Consequently, the term ʻBritishʼ is the most appropriate
for my purposes.
9Sontag. ʻThe Imagination of Disasterʼ. p.44; Skal, David J. 1993. The Monster Show: A
Cultural History of Horror. London: Plexus. p.247; Hendershot. Paranoia, the Bomb and 1950s
Science Fiction Films. p.1.
10Sontag. ʻThe Imagination of Disasterʼ. p.44; Hendershot. Paranoia, the Bomb and 1950s
Science Fiction Films. p.127.
11 Biskind. Seeing is Believing. p.140.
12
Jancovich, Mark. 1996. Rational Fears: American Horror in the 1950s. Manchester:
Manchester University Press. p.17.
13
Tudor, Andrew. 1989. Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p.18.
14Booker, M. Keith. 2001. Monsters, Mushroom Clouds and the Cold War: American Science
Fiction and the Roots of Postmodernism, 1946-1964. Westport, CT: Greenwood. p.10.
40
15 Grant, Barry Keith. 2007. Film Genre: From Iconography to Ideology. London: Wallflower. p.7.
16 Booker. Monsters, Mushroom Clouds and the Cold War. p.107.
17This raises questions about what the term ʻscience fictionʼ is taken to mean and how this
thesis defines the genre it studies. There is a long history of scholarly writing about the
boundaries of science fiction, both on screen and in literature. See, for example, Landon,
Brooks. 2002. Science Fiction After 1900: From the Steam Man to the Stars. London: Routledge
p.31 and Suvin, Darko. 1979. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of
a Literary Genre. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Although there are many different
ways in which the genre could be defined, in light of this projectʼs focus on historical British
audiences it makes more sense to include or exclude films based on the ways in which their
generic status was understood in 1950s Britain. Each film discussed in this thesis was framed
as science fiction by the promotional material that accompanied its British release or by reviews,
previews and other types of contemporary commentary. This is, of course, a necessarily broad
and nebulous grouping of films that is open to criticism and debate, but in the context of the
aims of this work a more concrete definition of what is meant by ʻscience fictionʼ is largely
unnecessary.
18 Hendershot. Paranoia, the Bomb and 1950s Science Fiction Films. p.105.
19 Swann. The Hollywood Feature Film in Postwar Britain. p.6.
20See, for example, Anon. 6 October 1956. ʻInvasion of the Body Snatchersʼ, Picturegoer. p.12,
13 and 21; and Anon. 26 June 1954. ʻDevil Girl from Marsʼ, Picture Show. p.5, 6 and 12.
21 See, for example, Anon. 22 June 1957. ʻQuatermass IIʼ, Picture Show. p.9.
22 Anon. 6 October 1956. ʻInvasion of the Body Snatchersʼ, Picturegoer. p.12.
23Dixon, Wheeler Winston. 2010. A History of Horror. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
p.88.
24 Swann. The Hollywood Feature Film in Postwar Britain. p.6.
25 There is some debate about the title of this film, with certain sources listing it as The
Quatermass Experiment despite it being styled on its British release as The Quatermass
Xperiment, perhaps to advertise the fact that it was deemed so horrific that it was awarded an
ʻXʼ certificate by the British censors. In order to help distinguish it from the 1953 BBC television
serial on which it was based, this thesis will refer to the Hammer film as The Quatermass
Xperiment and the BBC serial as The Quatermass Experiment.
26Harper, Sue and Vincent Porter. 2003. British Cinema of the 1950s: The Decline of
Deference. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.114.
27 Ibid. pp.114-115.
28 Ibid. p.115.
29Doherty, Thomas. 2007. Hollywoodʼs Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code
Administration. New York: Columbia University Press. p.228.
30 Harper and Porter. British Cinema of the 1950s. p.243.
31Bell, Shannon. 2003. ʻFrom Ticket Booth to Screen Tower: An Architectural Study of Drive-In
Theatres in the Baltimore - Washington, D.C. - Richmond Corridorʼ, in Hoagland and Breisch
(2003: 215-227). p.126.
32
Segeave, Kerry. 1992. Drive-In Theatres: A History from Their Inception in 1933. Jerrerson,
NC: McFarland. p.109.
33Tang, Steve. 2006. The Cold Warʼs Odd Couple: The Unintended Partnership Between the
Republic of China and the UK 1950-1958. London: I.B. Tauris. p.83.

41
34 Willis, Charles A. 2005. America in the 1950s. New York: Facts on File. pp.9-10.
35McDonald, John. F. 2008. Urban America: Growth, Crisis, and Rebirth. New York: M.E.
Sharpe. p.65.
36 Willis. America in the 1950s. p.27.
37Brown, Clair. 1994. American Standards of Living. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. p.
277.
38Supple, Barry. 1994. ʻBritish Decline Since 1945ʼ in Flound and McCloskey (1994: 318-346).
pp.322-323.
39Temple, Paul. 1998. ʻOverview: Growth, Competitiveness and Trade Performanceʼ, in Buxton,
Chapman and Temple (1998: 69-98). p.75.
40
Rosen, Andrew. 2003. The Transformation of British Life 1950-2000: A Social History.
Manchester: Manchester University Press. p.11.
41 Ibid. p.12.
42 Ibid. p.14.
43 Ibid. p.19.
44 Willis. America in the 1950s. pp.5-6.
45 McDonald. Urban America. p.65.
46 Willis. America in the 1950s. pp.5-6.
47 Ibid. p.6.
48 Desai, Rashmi. 1963. Indian Immigrants in Britain. London: Oxford University Press. p.6.
49Hutchings, Peter. 1999. ʻ“Weʼre the Martians Now”: British SF Invasion Fantasies of the
1950s and 1960sʼ, in Hunter (1999b: 33-47). p.35.
50 Ibid. pp.35-36.
51 Ibid. p.36.
52 The Americo-centricity of much of the academic literature that addresses 1950s science
fiction films is discussed further in Chapter One.
53Brosnan, John. May 1978. ʻA History of Science Fiction Filmsʼ, Starburst. Vol.1, No.3. pp.
32-40.
54Lowe, Andy, Jayne Nelson, James White and Jamie Graham, October 2007. ʻThe Seven Ages
of Sci-Fiʼ, Total Film. No.133. pp.80-91.
55Barber, Martin. 12 October 2007. ʻExhibition: Alien Nationʼ, BBC Norfolk. http://
www.bbc.co.uk/ norfolk/content/articles/2007/10/02/
arts_alien_nation_scva_oct07_feature.shtml. Retrieved 16 June 2011.
56 Lambie, Ryan. 20 October 2010. ʻThe Greatest Sci-Fi Movies of the 1950sʼ, Den of Geek.
http:// www.denofgeek.com/movies/640057/the_greatest_scifi_movies_of_the_1950s.html
Retrieved 16 June 2011.
57Alienweirdo. 13 February 2007. ʻThe Atomic Age in Sci Fi - Thesis Question Help
Appreciated!ʼ, Science Fiction Fantasy Chronicles. http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/35790-
the-atomic-age-in-sci-fi-thesis-question.html. Retrieved 10 July 2011.

42
58 strawberry_wise. 23 August 2007. ʻRe: To the Proud “Mickey Mousers”ʼ, The Student Room.
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=442621&page=2. Retrieved 10 July 2011.
59Niven, Bill. 2004. ʻThe Globalisation of Memory and the Rediscovery of German Sufferingʼ, in
Taberner (2004: 229-246).
60 Ibid. p.233.
61 Ibid. p.237.
62 Of course, this is not the traditional use of the term ʻglobalisationʼ since this thesis is only
interested in British, rather than worldwide, audiences. However, because this concept is drawn
from Nivenʼs work I retain his terminology, even if it does not fit my own usage as neatly as it fits
his.
63Thussu, Daya Kishan. 2007a. ʻMapping Global Media Flow and Contra-Flowʼ, in Thussu
(2007b: 10-29). p.17.
64Sperling, James. 2010. ʻPermanent Allies or Friends with Benefits? The Anglo-American
Security Relationshipʼ, in Brown (2010: 15-37). p.18.
65 Sperling. ʻPermanent Allies or Friends with Benefits?ʼ. p.18.
66Balis, Christina V. 2004. ʻContrasting Images, Complementary Visionsʼ, in Balis and Serfaty
(2004:203-224). p.205.
67 Fromm, Erich. 2009. The Fear of Freedom. Abingdon: Routledge, 2009. (Originally published
in 1942).
68 Ibid. p.iix.
69 Ibid. p.1.
70 Ibid. p.2.
71 Ibid.
72 Ibid. p.3.
73 Ibid. p.116.
74 Ibid. p.165.
75 Ibid. pp.163-164.
76 Ibid. p.164.
77 Ibid.
78 Ibid. p.165.
79 Ibid. p.166.
80
Hendershot. Paranoia, the Bomb and 1950s Science Fiction Films. p.1; Booker. Monsters,
Mushroom Clouds and the Cold War.
81Shapiro, Benjamin. 1990. ʻUniversal Truths: Cultural Myths and Generic Adaptation in 1950s
Science Fiction Filmsʼ, Journal of Popular Film and Television. Vol.18, No.3. Autumn. p.111.
82Matthews, Melvin E. 2007. Hostile Aliens, Hollywood and Todayʼs Headlines. New York, NY:
Algora. p.8.
83 Biskind. Seeing is Believing. p.4.

43
84Geraghty. American Science Fiction Film and Television. p.20; Jancovich, Mark. 1996.
Rational Fears: American Horror in the 1950s. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p.17.
85Klinger, Barbara. 1997. ʻFilm History Terminable and Interminable: Recovering the Past in
Reception Studiesʼ, Screen. Vol.38, No.2. Summer. pp.107-28.
86Staiger, Janet. 1992. Interpreting Films: Studies in the Historical Reception of American
Cinema. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p.45.
87I am, of course, aware that the notion of a ʻnational audienceʼ is contentious and I explain my
approach to this issue in Chapter One.
88 Biskind. Seeing is Believing. p.140.
89 Miles, Robert. 1997. ʻBeyond the “Race” Concept: The Reproduction of Racism in Englandʼ,
in Gates (1997: 249-274). p.255.
90Fryer, Peter. 1984. Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain. London: Pluto
Press. p.xi.
91 Hendershot. Paranoia, the Bomb and 1950s Science Fiction Films. p.75.

44
 Chapter One: Contexts and Approaches

! Introduction

! The principal issue that this thesis grapples with is not suggested by

1950s science fiction films themselves, but rather by the ways in which they

have been framed in popular debate. As I demonstrated in the Introduction,

there has been a problematic tendency in this type of discussion to either apply

conclusions about the American reception of these films to audiences in other

countries or to leave the issue of different national reception contexts

unacknowledged. This situation has resulted in part from the contexts within

which academic debates about these films have been held. The abundance of

American science fiction cinema produced during the so-called golden age of

the 1950s has provided film scholars with both a compelling reason to turn their

focus to the US and also a wealth of American material to analyse. However,

this has come at the detriment of other possible areas of enquiry. The reading

strategies employed by British audiences of American genre films, for example,

have not yet been fully explored, while British science fiction cinema itself has

been the subject of a comparatively concise range of debates that have largely

focused on production rather than reception. These gaps in our knowledge

about the relationship between British audiences and 1950s science fiction

cinema have made it difficult to argue that there existed a unique British

reception history of the genre during this period, thereby allowing US readings

of these films to be globalised under the false presumption that western

audiences responded to films in a largely uniform manner.

! This line of argument was suggested in the Introduction during a brief

characterisation of the academic literature that has addressed 1950s science

fiction cinema. However, because that overview could only provide a succinct
45
account of the intellectual contexts of this study, it did not offer detailed

evidence about the nature and scope of existing scholarship on these films to

support this premise. Consequently, a more comprehensive review of this

literature is required to demonstrate the limitations of our current understanding

of 1950s science fiction cinema that have produced the slippage that

necessitates the project undertaken in this thesis. This is the task performed by

the first half of the current chapter.1 Since this thesis is concerned with 1950s

British and American films, the literature that has addressed the science fiction

cinema of these countries during this era is surveyed. What emerges is a

picture of a field that has not yet fully accounted for either the specificity of the

relationship between American films and British audiences or the full range of

concerns that inflected the British reception of domestic 1950s science fiction

cinema. As such, these sections demonstrate gaps in our understanding of

these films that might have contributed to the globalisation of their American

readings and which, in order to limit such a process, this thesis seeks to fill.

! The second half of the chapter turns its attention to the literature that has

influenced my approach to performing that task. If this thesis seeks to highlight

the potential of these films to be reinterpreted by British audiences in line with

public debates that were being held in that country, then it must make explicit its

understanding of the relationship between texts, audiences and reception

contexts, its approach to the study of historical reception and the precise

methods by which it hopes to achieve its goals. Drawing on intellectual

developments in areas such as semiotics, transcultural transmission, the New

Film History and the conceptualisation of the audience and the nation, the

second half of the chapter begins by outlining the theoretical frameworks that

inform my approach to this study. With these underlying principles in place, the

46
final section discusses how the analysis presented in the chapters that follow

will operate, what sources it will draw on and how these sources will be used to

address the British reception of 1950s science fiction cinema.

! American 1950s Science Fiction Cinema: Communism and Nuclear

Anxiety

! The notion that audiences used 1950s science fiction cinema as a

means of exploring anxieties about nuclear technology has long been a

prominent feature of the scholarly criticism of these films. Such claims can trace

their lineage back to Susan Sontagʼs seminal essay, ʻThe Imagination of

Disasterʼ.2 First appearing in 1965, this early critique of mid-century science

fiction has also been one of the most influential. In her article, Sontag

suggested a connection between the repeated narrative use of radiation across

science fiction films from the 1950s and early 1960s and contemporary

international anxieties about the potentially holocaustic consequences of the

development of nuclear weaponry.3 In making this observation, Sontag not only

highlights the particular significance of nuclear anxieties in Japan, given that it is

the only nation to have suffered the blast of a nuclear bomb, but also discusses

American science fiction films, including The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957),

and British offerings such as The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961).4 For

Sontag, the development of nuclear weapons provided ʻa historically specifiable

twistʼ to the relationship between 1950s audiences across the globe and

cinematic images of mass destruction and monstrosity.5 In this way, Sontag

implicitly suggests that audiences in different countries around the world were

engaged in a politicisation of nuclear science in their reading of 1950s science

fiction cinema. For Sontag, this was an international phenomenon.

47
! However, the observation that nuclear anxieties informed science fiction

films during the 1950s occupies only a brief section of ʻThe Imagination of

Disasterʼ and is largely out of kilter with portions of Sontagʼs broader argument.

Elsewhere in this essay she suggests:

There is no social criticism, of even the most implicit kind, in science fiction
films...Also, the notion of science as a social activity, interlocking with social and
political interests, is unacknowledged. Science is simply either adventure (for good
or evil) or a technical response to danger. And, typically, when the fear of science is
paramount - when science is conceived of as black magic rather than white - the
evil has no attribution beyond that of the perverse will of an individual scientist.6

As these claims demonstrate, despite the influence that Sontagʼs observations

about the function of nuclear science in science fiction cinema would later exert

over a broad range of critical literature, her argument simultaneously sought to

deny that these films understood science as a social or political activity. As

such, there is tension in Sontagʼs approach to the role of nuclear science in

1950s science fiction cinema. She sees these films as products of anxieties

about nuclear science, but ultimately rejects the notion that their depiction of

science had any broader social or political significance.

! Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sontagʼs denial of the social and political function

of science in these films has drawn criticism. Scholars such as Errol Vieth have

argued that ʻSontagʼs claims that the nature of science is a decontextualised

ephemera without social and cultural underpinnings cannot be supportedʼ.7

Indeed, as Vivian Sobchack has claimed, ʻalthough the SF [science fiction] film

existed in isolated instances before World War II, it only emerged as a critically

recognised genre after Hiroshimaʼ (Sobchackʼs emphasis), suggesting that

there is at least some connection between 1950s science fiction cinema and

real world nuclear politics.8 Similarly, J. P. Telotte has argued that ʻthe various

mutant and monster films of the 1950s and 1960s amply attest to [Americaʼs]

troubled attitudes towards science and technologyʼ.9 Both Sobchack and Telotte

48
suggest that these films emerged out of real social and political concerns about

the use and abuse of science, thereby challenging Sontagʼs belief that they

were, in Viethʼs terms, ʻdecontextualisedʼ.10 Sontagʼs observations about

radiation in 1950s science fiction cinema have subsequently been developed by

writers such as Sobchack and Telotte who find in these films the type of social

and political commentary that she denied was present. Scholars such as

Reynold Humphries and Jonathan Lake Crane have largely gone about this

task by producing work that also distances itself from Sontagʼs broad

characterisation of international cinema in favour of more tightly focused, in-

depth examinations of the relationship between the particular Cold War nuclear

anxieties of a specific society and their manifestation in the science fiction

cinema which that culture produced.11 Perhaps because America was by far the

largest producer of genre films during this era and therefore provided the

greatest wealth of material for such projects, the majority of this work has

focused on US films and their contexts of production and reception.

! One of the most significant studies of this type is Cyndy Hendershotʼs

Paranoia, the Bomb and 1950s Science Fiction Films, which employs a

psychoanalytic framework to examine how paranoid fears of nuclear technology

informed the production and reception of science fiction films in mid-century

America.12 Situating her work within the context of a late 1990s critical

movement towards ʻre-evaluating the cultural paranoia that shaped Cold War

American lifeʼ, Hendershot provides a ʻre-examination of how popular

entertainment both reflected and shaped this paranoiaʼ.13 This project extends

the scope of her earlier research, which investigated the ways in which 1950s

American science fiction films played on US fears of nuclear science through a

series of ʻevolution/devolution fantasiesʼ.14 Hendershotʼs aim in addressing US

49
nuclear paranoia in her work is to describe a specifically American cultural

phenomenon, identifying the characteristics of the atomic panic that permeated

the nation and their influence on the popular culture which the country

produced. Although Hendershot herself only briefly acknowledges Sontagʼs

work, dismissing it as a result of the fact that it ʻdoes not developʼ the

connection between 1950s science fiction films and nuclear weaponry ʻat any

lengthʼ, it is clear that Hendershotʼs study draws more significantly from

Sontagʼs observations about radiation and its impact on national psyches than

she acknowledges.15 In the same way that Sontag saw ʻthe accidental

awakening of the super-destructive monster who has slept in the earth since

prehistoryʼ in Japanese films as ʻan obvious metaphor for the Bombʼ,

Hendershot has similarly argued that American science fiction ʻfilms of the

1950s attempted to represent the nuclear threat by utilising metaphors that

helped American audiences to concretise and tame the unthinkable threat of

nuclear warʼ.16 Hendershotʼs work is thus a good example of the range of

scholarship that followed Sontag by refining her internationally focused

observations to explore the place of nuclear anxiety within the specific

production and reception contexts of 1950s America.

! A range of other authors from a variety of different critical perspectives

have similarly noted the importance of 1950s US nuclear paranoia to

contemporary American science fiction cinema. David J. Skal, for example, has

found a place for these films within a chronology of American anxieties on

screen, identifying their atomic panic as an evolution of the gothic horror of

Universalʼs monster movies of the 1930s and 1940s. He writes that ʻan

enveloping cloak was no longer an image of dread. But a mushroom cloud

wasʼ.17 Similarly, Kendall R. Phillips reads The Thing from Another World (1951)

50
as a film in which, ʻgiven...the sense of impending atomic doom, the parallel

between the real horror and the fictional horror could be too closeʼ.18 The ʻsense

of impending atomic doomʼ that he discusses is, of course, the same American

nuclear paranoia that Hendershot investigates.19 Parallel claims have been

made by a range of critics, including M. Keith Booker, Lincoln Geraghty, Peter

Lev and Thomas D. Clareson.20 The implicit argument suggested by these

scholars is perhaps made the most plain by Jonathan Lake Crane when he

claims that, during the 1950s, ʻamongst the most common places, in number

and status, to attempt an understanding of the enormous destruction suffered

by Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and to face the possibility of an even more dire

future atomic apocalypse, were theatres and drive-ins across Americaʼ.21 As a

result of their interest in the American films that dominated the genre in the

1950s, these scholars have focused their work on the multiple ways in which

US fears of nuclear technology informed the nationʼs science fiction cinema

during this decade.

! American fears of communist subversion and invasion have been just as

central to the literature that has addressed 1950s US science fiction cinema as

anxieties about nuclear technology. The broadly suspected communist

infiltration of American society during the 1950s has become another popular

lens through which scholars have viewed US science fiction films of the era. As

Kim Newman writes of The Thing from Another World, ʻthe Cold War certainly

forms a potent subtext for the s-f [science fiction] thrills of man against

monsterʼ.22 However, while the connection between US nuclear anxieties and

these American films is relatively straightforward, since many made narrative

use of radiation, the ways in which they relate to American fears of communism

are a little more complicated, as I discuss below.

51
! Although he is careful to identify weaknesses in and alternatives to these

readings, Peter Biskind has perhaps presented the most persuasive arguments

about how some 1950s American science fiction films operated as projections

of US anxieties about communist infiltration. Biskindʼs book, Seeing Is

Believing: How Hollywood Taught Us To Stop Worrying and Love the Fifties, is a

study that, as Paul Swann describes it, allows ʻone to see widely disparate

genre films [of 1950s America] subscribing essentially to the same positionʼ,

namely that ʻthe essential contradictions between the American traditions of

individualism and conformityʼ could be partially resolved by ʻcreating and

controlling consensus, whether by the left, the centre or the rightʼ.23 Biskind

demonstrates the political intentions of the films he analyses by devoting

sections of his book to some of the most popular film genres from this era and

uncovering within them a constellation of different outlooks, organising them

into categories including, but not limited to, ʻcorporate-liberalʼ, ʻconservativeʼ,

ʻpluralistsʼ and ʻextremistsʼ.24 However, when discussing 1950s American

science fiction cinema, Biskind argues that films that belong to each of these

different political persuasions attempted to identify their ideological opponents

with the threat of communism, thereby discrediting them.25 As Biskind describes

it, the result of these attempts to undermine different political positions by

associating them with communism was that science fiction films from across the

political spectrum became united in their increasing anti-communist sentiment.

He argues:

The Soviet threat was as much a function of the squabble between Democrats and
Republicans as it was a reality...Indeed, the red nightmare was so handy that had it
not existed, American politicians would have had to invent it. Movies did invent it,
and it served somewhat the same purpose in Hollywood as it did in Washington.
More often than not, the Communist connection was a red herring, allowing the
centre to attack extremists, extremists to attack the centre, and both centrists and
extremists to quarrel among themselves...all in the guise of respectable
anticommunism.26

52
As this argument suggests, Biskind sees 1950s US science fiction cinema as

one point at which the various political positions which interest him ostensibly

collapse into one another in their haste to associate each other with

communism, leaving instead a united attempt to denigrate this political ideology

in American genre cinema of this era.

! Biskind sees this attack on communism being operated through

metaphor and the figure of the Other. In terms of the invasion narratives of the

era, he argues that ʻthe little green men from Mars stood in the popular

imagination for the clever red men from Moscowʼ, while films that tackled

dehumanisation, often through alien replication or possession of human bodies,

raised fears of communist ideology and propaganda.27 Films about giant

insects, such as the overgrown ants in Them! (1954), are read by Biskind in

similar terms, since these creatures ʻbehaved like a mass, loved war and made

slavesʼ and so could also be seen to represent popular American stereotypes of

communists.28 What unites the schemes of representation through which

Biskind sees 1950s science fiction films attacking communism is that they all

make use of the essential Otherness of science fictionʼs worlds and creatures

as a metaphor for the presumed Otherness of communist ideology to American

audiences. In this sense, demonising and dehumanising the Other provided a

means by which these films could go about ʻtransforming them into Them while

at the same time guaranteeing that the ideas, people, and values [that the

political centre] did like were cosily considered to be Usʼ.29 In other terms, fears

of the communist bugaboo voiced by 1950s science fiction films supported the

construction of a political consensus behind supposedly traditional American

values. Biskindʼs argument is much broader than this narrow focus on the

communist infiltration of America, taking in issues such as the binary opposition

53
of civilisation and nature, gender and, of course, the threat of nuclear weapons,

but it is his observations about the relationship between US fears of

communism, American science fictionʼs Others and conformity that have proven

most influential with later scholars.

! Biskindʼs claims have been developed by a wealth of writing that

connects anti-communist sentiment and 1950s US depersonalisation films, in

which alien Others possess or replicate human bodies, particularly the classic

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). As M. Keith Booker, for example, has

argued:

What Invasion of the Body Snatchers lacks in the way of eye-catching visuals is
more than made up for by its mind-catching theme. The notion of stealthy invaders
who essentially take over the minds of normal Americans, converting them to an
alien ideology, resonates in an obvious way with the Cold War fear of communist
subversion. Indeed, the film has come to be widely regarded as an iconic cultural
representation of its contemporary climate of anti-communist paranoia. It is
certainly the case that the replacements [that the aliens use to disguise the
absence of their victims], who look the same as everyone else, but feel no emotion
and have no individuality, directly echo the eraʼs most prevalent stereotypes about
communists.30

Bookerʼs claim has clearly been strongly influenced by Biskindʼs work on the

relationship between the communist and alien Others in depersonalisation films.

Since Biskindʼs book was published, similar arguments about a range of US

depersonalisation narratives have appeared across a wide variety of studies,

including, for example, those of Barry Keith Grant, Mark Rawlinson, William H.

Young and Nancy K. Young, and Jay McRoy.31 Each of these scholars has

connected depersonalisation in 1950s American science fiction cinema with the

threat of communist infiltration in the United States. Indeed, so prevalent has

this type of argument become that Lincoln Geraghty has gone so far as to term

it a ʻcritical orthodoxyʼ, a claim that draws on earlier work by Mark Jancovich.32

As suggested by the literature reviewed above, this orthodoxy could also be

extended to include the suggestion that 1950s American science fiction cinema

54
played on US fears of nuclear technology. These two arguments have appeared

in a significant number of studies of these films and have come, as Geraghty

and Jancovich suggest, to dominate the field. It is of little surprise, then, that it is

these claims that have started to be globalised and which inform the examples

of popular British debates about 1950s science fiction films discussed in the

Introduction.

! American 1950s Science Fiction: Alternative Readings

! There have also been studies, albeit fewer in number, that have

demonstrated the possibility of other approaches to the relationship between

1950s American society and its science fiction cinema. Some have placed

Americaʼs covert invasion films, such as Body Snatchers, in dialogue with

different aspects of 1950s US debates about communism. Booker himself, for

example, offers a secondary interpretation of Body Snatchers that subverts

much of the consensus about anti-communist sentiment in 1950s US science

fiction cinema by arguing that ʻthe film suggests that the communist

conspiracy...is incredibly far-fetched, the stuff of B-grade science fictionʼ.33

Similarly, Phillip L. Gianos advances another re-reading of this filmʼs

relationship to communism, claiming ʻone can easily see Invasion of the Body

Snatchers as an allegory on...the drive toward a dehumanising conformity in

behaviour and orthodoxy of thought in the service of opposition to

communismʼ.34 Gianos thus sees this film not as an attack on communism, but

on the anti-communist fervour, encapsulated by Senator Joseph McCarthy and

the investigations of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, that

gripped America during much of the 1950s. Furthermore, Barry Keith Grant has

suggested that the depersonalised alien pod creatures of Body Snatchers might

55
also have been understood as representations of ʻour detached and alienated

neighboursʼ.35 Jack Finney, who wrote the novel that Body Snatchers was

based on, has denied that he ever intended his pod people to be read as

metaphors for communists, while Don Siegel, the filmʼs director, is said to have

been proud of his filmʼs political message, but remained silent about what he

thought that message was.36 Perhaps these differences of opinion about Body

Snatchers result from what Grant describes as its utilisation of a ʻcentral

metaphor for the monstrous that...is sufficiently flexible to accommodate

multiple interpretationsʼ.37 In this sense, each of these commentators has

demonstrated the polysemic nature of 1950s US science fictionʼs

depersonalisation narratives, such as Body Snatchers, by showing them to be

capable of suggesting a variety of attitudes towards communism.

! The flexibility of the eraʼs American science fiction cinema is suggested

in a more general sense by the fact that scholars have read these films as

critiques of entirely different aspects of US culture. Most prominent amongst this

body of work is Mark Jancovichʼs Rational Fears: American Horror in the

1950s.38 First published in 1996, this study offers a fresh perspective distinct

from Biskindʼs suggestion that many 1950s US science fiction films supported

conformity and traditional American ideals.39 Jancovich argues that ʻif these

films do emphasise the need to “pull together”, they do not endorse the kinds of

conformist consensus which Biskind...suggest[s]. They are actually deeply

critical of conformityʼ.40 Furthermore, he draws attention to the fact that ʻthe

alienʼs association with the Soviet Union did not necessarily imply an affirmation

of American societyʼ and its values.41 Building on these claims, Jancovich turns

assumptions about communismʼs association with the Other upside down when

he suggests that ʻthe concerns with the Soviet Union were often merely a

56
displacement or a code which different sections of American society used in

order to criticise those aspects of American life which they feared or opposedʼ.42

Although Jancovich does accept that Biskind made similar claims about

different sections of American society associating each other with communism

as a means of discrediting them, his argument diverges from that of Biskind

when he claims that the Other was also used to critique the creeping uniformity

of American society brought about by what he terms ʻscientific-technical

rationalityʼ.43 In this sense, he reads the rejection of the Other in 1950s science

fiction films as an ʻadmirable attempt to defend the human against the inhuman;

to privilege certain communal values in opposition to the “dehumanising”

domination of scientific-technical rationalityʼ.44 Jancovichʼs argument, in its

radical re-reading of the signs and symbols that have led many scholars to

conclude that 1950s US science fiction cinema was often anti-communist,

suggests that the flexible metaphors of these films might also have been

understood as an attack on emergent trends in contemporary America itself.

! Bonnie Noonan is another example of a scholar who has similarly

deviated from the dominant critical focus on communism and nuclear

technology. Her work examines the representation of female scientists in mid-

century American science fiction films, subverting the popular assumption that

women were predominantly marginalised by the genre.45 Noonan demonstrates

that ʻone characteristic of American B science fiction films from 1950 to 1963 or

so is the depiction of professional women characters, particularly as assistants

to scientists, students of science, and even as scientists in their own rightʼ.46

Noonan places these American female scientists within the context of a society

that witnessed ʻthe emergence of women into the public and professional

sphere during World War IIʼ.47 Although observations about the role of women in

57
1950s science fiction films have appeared in many other critical analyses,

notably in Biskindʼs own arguments, Noonanʼs book is the most sustained

example of this type of study to date.48 Noonanʼs work can be placed in

dialogue with Jancovichʼs arguments about scientific-technical rationality to

suggest that interpretations produced by domestic audiences of US science

fiction films were inflected by a range of issues that extended beyond fears of

nuclear technology and communism. The variety of topics that might have been

used in making sense of these films is further suggested by the scholarship of a

number of other authors, such as Kevin Heffernan and Steven M. Sanders, who

have read these films through the history of 3D technology and film noir

respectively.49 Similarly, William M. Tsutsui has argued that, rather than being

interpreted as representations of communism or nuclear technology, the

overgrown insects that appeared in many science fiction films of this period,

such as Them!, ʻshould be taken more literally, less as metaphors than as

insects, and that the big bug genre should be analyzed in the context of actual

fears of insect invasion and growing misgivings about the safety and

effectiveness of modern insecticides in 1950s and early 1960s Americaʼ.50

Clearly there were a number of different American concerns through which

these films could have been read.

! Other academics have provided alternatives to the ʻcritical orthodoxyʼ

that Geraghty describes by approaching these films in ways that do not connect

them to their historical contexts of production or reception at all.51 Patrick

Lucanioʼs Them or Us is a good example of this type of work.52 Lucanio applies

psychoanalytic principles to 1950s science fiction films, arguing that ʻC. G.

Jungʼs analytical psychology is the proper methodology for the interpretation of

meaning and value in the science fiction genreʼ.53 Consequently, Lucanioʼs

58
conclusions are often of a radically different nature to the contextually

influenced readings produced by authors such as Hendershot or Biskind. For

example, Lucanio argues:

The flying saucer is the iconographic image for the symbol (mandala) of wholeness
and totality. Wholeness and totality, furthermore, are representative of
individuation. The flying saucer is, then, the vehicle by which the ego assembles
the archetypes for full harmony within consciousness.54

Lucanioʼs reading of the imagery and narrative patterns of 1950s science fiction

cinema employs a psychoanalytical approach and consequently explores these

films in an ahistorical manner. Like that of Noonan and Jancovich, Lucanioʼs

work thus represents a deviation from the more traditional intellectual

frameworks within which these films have been studied.

! Although both Geraghty and Jancovich have argued that there exists a

scholarly ʻorthodoxyʼ that posits American 1950s science fiction cinema as a

manifestation of US fears of communism and nuclear technology, the studies

discussed above suggest that a broader range of readings of these films is

possible.55 From the anti-McCarthyist reading of the depersonalisation

narratives suggested by Bookerʼs alternative approach to Body Snatchers to

Lucanioʼs ahistorical psychoanalysis, the range of interpretations of these

American films offered by scholarship has been broader than is often

acknowledged.56 While most, but not all, of these writers have in some way

situated these films within their American contexts of production and reception,

the variety of readings that they have produced strongly suggests the polysemic

nature of much of the genre during the 1950s. This in turn indicates that these

films might have been particularly susceptible to reinterpretation by audiences

in other countries to which they were exported, who were party to a differently

inflected set of public debates. The United States may have dominated science

fiction film production during this decade, but the academic literature that has
59
addressed these films in their domestic contexts conversely highlights their

suitability to the type of cross-cultural re-reading that this thesis is interested in

by underlining the mutability of the metaphors that they employed. This

interpretative flexibility is important to my work because these US films were

received in very different socio-political contexts when screened in Britain as a

result of the significant differences between that country and America during the

1950s, as outlined in the Introduction to this thesis. These American science

fiction films might consequently have found their meanings shaped in new ways

by Britons who saw in them an opportunity to express and negotiate their own

hopes and fears, many of which were nationally specific. Prior to the current

thesis, however, this aspect of the reception of 1950s American science fiction

cinema had not been rigorously explored. In providing such an investigation,

this project outlines for the first time some of the ways in which these American

productions were framed by British public debate, rendering visible the

specificity of the British history of their reception and consequently providing a

means of resisting the globalisation of their US interpretations.

! British 1950s Science Fiction Cinema

! As noted above, the broad range of work that has addressed American

1950s science fiction cinema is perhaps a result of the fact that films from the

United States dominated the genre during the decade. However, Britain was

also a prominent producer of 1950s science fiction cinema, although it could not

match Hollywoodʼs proliferation. This has provided British genre historians with

a decent, but less extensive, range of material with which to work.

Consequently, although a number of scholars have considered British science

fiction films of the 1950s, such work has been comparatively limited in quantity.

60
Furthermore, as I demonstrate below, it has also focused predominantly on

contexts of production rather than reception. As a result, there remains scope

for a project such as this to broaden our knowledge about these films by

exploring their relationship to different British public debates.

! Peter Hutchingsʼ work on British science fiction cinema is particularly

useful to the current project because it both draws attention to the specificity of

the British history of the genre during the 1950s and stresses the importance of

understanding the domestic contexts that informed these films. In his essay,

ʻ“Weʼre the Martians Now”: British SF Invasion Fantasies of the 1950s and

1960sʼ, Hutchings describes the ʻdistinctive characterʼ of the British films of this

sub-genre, rejecting the presumption that they were ʻlesser versions of or

adjuncts to the better known US science fiction invasion films of the 1950sʼ.57

Hutchings explains the unique qualities of British science fiction films through

reference to the ʻsocially and historically specific pressures exerted upon the

fantasies by the context within which they were producedʼ.58 Hutchingsʼ interest

in production contexts is, of course, different from my own interest in reception

contexts, but his discussion still places these British films within the framework

of 1950s British public debates. For example, he argues that

ʻconsumerism...meant something different in America from what it did in Britain

(where it was often associated with anxieties about the alleged undue influence

of American culture on the British way of life)ʼ.59 In the context of this and other

British concerns, Hutchings examines the series of Hammer films that featured

the character of Professor Bernard Quatermass, produced between 1955 and

1967, the BBC television serials on which they were based, which aired

between 1953 and 1959, and a number of other British invasion narratives that

were released into the 1960s and which consequently fall outside the timeframe

61
of my project. Placing these productions in dialogue with British television and

film cultures, and debates about domesticity and national identity, Hutchings

examines the relationship between British science fiction cinema and British

public anxieties.

! This is a project that he also pursues in an earlier piece of work on some

of the films that concern this thesis. Hutchings devotes half a chapter of his

study of the British horror film to The Quatermass Xperiment (1955).60 Here he

explores the industrial contexts within which this film was produced, drawing

attention to the ways in which issues such as finance and censorship helped to

shape the environment from which the feature emerged. He also provides an

analysis of the ways in which The Quatermass Xperiment, its sequel from 1957

and X - The Unknown (1956) explored pressing issues in British society, such

as the problematic nature of post-war masculinity, the Welfare State and the

dislocation of the working class. This work shares with ʻ“Weʼre the Martians

Now”: British SF Invasion Fantasies of the 1950s and 1960sʼ a concern for the

relationship between 1950s British science fiction films and the contexts within

which they were made. In this sense, the current thesis builds on Hutchingsʼ

research by extending his interest in the socio-political contexts of 1950s British

science fiction film production into the realm of reception.

! Hutchingsʼ focus on the intersection of public debate, production contexts

and 1950s British science fiction cinema is shared by Ian Conrich, who has

discussed what he terms the ʻtrashing Londonʼ science fiction films.61 These

productions, made in Britain during the 1950s and early 1960s, saw gigantic

monsters attacking the British capital. Conrich argues that these films ʻmay be

read as allegories of atomic age fears, but they also appear to be articulating

tensions created by a crisis in hegemonyʼ during the twilight of the British

62
Empire and represent ʻa return to wartime imagesʼ.62 In this regard, his

observation that ʻBritish colossal creature films can be read as metaphorical

representations of a fear of modern warfare and the atomic threat...[but they

also] look back to the wartime terror of the Blitzʼ draws connections between

texts and contexts in a manner that mirrors Hutchingsʼ approach.63 Similarly,

Sarah Street has briefly considered the ways in which British science fiction

films from the 1950s articulated British concerns, drawing connections between

The Quatermass Xperiment, Quatermass II, ʻBritainʼs decline as an imperial

powerʼ and ʻanti-nuclear protests in the mid-to-late 1950sʼ.64 Steve Chibnall has

also performed comparable work in terms of the presentation of gender in the

genre, drawing on films such as Four Sided Triangle (1953) and Devil Girl from

Mars (1954).65 He returns to this topic in a section of his book, The British ʻBʼ

Film, co-authored by Brian McFarlane.66 Hutchings, Conrich, Street, Chibnall

and McFarlane thus provide readings of mid-century British science fiction films

that position the genre within its socio-political contexts of production, much as

writers such as Biskind, Jancovich and numerous others have done for

American science fiction films of the era. These authors effectively demonstrate

the specificity of British science fiction cinema of the 1950s, relating its style and

content to a range of British concerns. Despite being relatively concise,

especially when compared to the host of book-length studies that constitutes

the equivalent debate about the US science fiction cinema of the period, this

body of work shows that British science fiction often intersected with key public

debates of the 1950s, paving the way for my research to supplement its

analysis of the contexts within which these films were produced through an

exploration of the contexts within which they were watched.

63
! The particular British anxieties and debates that the scholars discussed

above focus on sometimes overlap with the areas of investigation selected by

the following chapters, but in each case this study approaches the issue in

question from a different angle. Hutchingsʼ discussion of film and television

cultures, for example, shares some similar concerns with the arguments made

in Chapter Five about the experience of 1950s British science fiction cinema-

going. However, whereas Hutchings is interested in the ways in which the

Quatermass films and television programmes both address their own status as

media texts and also use this status to engage with wider issues, my focus in

Chapter Five is the technologically mediated appeal of the cinema itself in

1950s Britain.67 Similarly, although Conrichʼs discussion of ʻwartime imagesʼ and

nuclear disaster provides the genesis for my argument in Chapter Four, I

develop on Conrichʼs position by demonstrating that Blitz imagery and the

prospect of a nuclear attack were often amalgamated in the British imagination,

thereby enabling new readings of these films to emerge.68 Chapter Three

shares common interests with Streetʼs brief discussion of the significance of the

collapse of the Empire to British science fiction cinema, a topic that Hutchings

also addresses, but my work on this issue largely focuses on connected

anxieties about the perceived eclipse of the nation by America.69 As these

comparisons demonstrate, although there has been some work that situates

British 1950s science fiction cinema within its historical national context, there is

still scope for a project such as my own to further expand our knowledge in this

area.

! Conversely, Andrew Tudorʼs book, Monsters and Mad Scientists, is an

example of work that has addressed these films in a manner that does not

privilege their connection to British public debates.70 Tudor examines the range

64
of horror films ʻwhich were released in Britain between 1931 (the beginning of

the ʻsoundʼ horror movie) and 1984ʼ.71 While Tudorʼs interest in genre films that

were screened in Britain during the 1950s, including many that could be classed

as science fiction, superficially aligns his study with the concerns of the current

project, his primary focus is the formalist generic qualities of these films and not

their reception or production contexts. Tudor classifies the threat contained in

the films he discusses in relation to a series of binaries as a means of codifying

their narrative content. In this regard, Tudorʼs work provides useful information

on the nature of British horror, and to a lesser extent science fiction, cinema and

his observations underpin some of the claims that I make in the chapters that

follow. However, Tudorʼs work is not concerned with the meanings attributed to

these films by British audiences.

! There has been some critical debate about 1950s British science fiction

cinema, the majority of which shares with both my own work and that of a large

portion of the scholars who have written on American genre cinema of this era,

a concern for the contextual factors that informed these films. Much of this

writing has been focused on production rather than reception contexts, but each

of these studies has developed our understanding of the broad range of public

debates that British 1950s science fiction films both articulated and negotiated.

However, because these films have been addressed by a more concise field of

scholarship than their American counterparts, there is room for a project such

as this to further contribute to our knowledge in this area. In doing so, this thesis

develops its argument that 1950s science fiction cinema, both domestic and

foreign, was open to reinterpretation in Britain in unique ways as a result of the

countryʼs specific cultural and socio-political circumstances.

65
! National Cinema and National Audiences

! Although this is not a thesis that is principally concerned with

investigating the concept of national cinema, Andrew Higson argues that ʻto

write about British cinema is to operate, however implicitly, with some

understanding of what that cinema is, what its limits are, what distinguishes it

from other cinemasʼ.72 Since my work discusses British and American 1950s

science fiction films, it is worth briefly situating myself within debates about, and

problematising the concept of, national cinema. Higson, for example, takes

issue with attempts to identify ʻindigenousʼ traits within national cinemas.73 The

notion of indigenousness is certainly problematic in 1950s science fiction since

directors, such as Eugène Lourié, sub-genres, such as the creature feature,

and even, in the case of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) and Behemoth

the Sea Monster (1959), entire plots found their way into both British and US

films. Given that this was a time of both increased US investment in the British

film industry and also American utilisation of British production facilities, as

noted in the Introduction, the notion that there was something indigenous about

either British or American 1950s science fiction cinema is contentious. Indeed,

the trappings of a transnational cinematic identity were actively embraced by

some British productions during this era since, as I argue in Chapter Five, it

helped them to gain a US audience. This further confuses notions of the

ʻnationalʼ because films such as Fiend Without a Face (1958) attempted to hide

their predominantly British national origins behind an ostensibly North American

facade. Consequently, what this thesis means when it discusses British or

American science fiction cinema requires some attention.

! Higson has been, alongside John Hill, a prominent figure in debates

about how to conceptualise national cinema. Higson has tended to emphasise

66
consumption, exploring the uses to which films are put by audiences in the

construction of a sense of nationhood, while Hill has been largely critical of this

approach, preferring to draw a distinction between the films screened in a

nation and the films of that nation.74 While recognising that these debates

suggest that attempts to define national cinemas are often complex and

controversial, there is little need for this thesis to engage in them beyond

explaining its use of terms such as British and American science fiction cinema.

In this regard, Sarah Street provides a practical solution. Street argues that,

ʻthere is a British film industry with relatively clearly defined economic

boundaries and methods of classification, producing films which may or may not

necessarily involve British themes or preoccupations, often including financial

and labour participation from other countriesʼ.75 Following this lead, when

subsequent chapters discuss British science fiction cinema, they refer to films

predominantly produced in Britain by British studios and production companies,

regardless of their subject matter, tone or the involvement of foreign personnel

and finance. The same definition applies when discussing American films. This

is, of course, a narrow conceptualisation of national cinema which does not

account for debates about the content of films or the uses to which they were

put. However, since this project is itself an exploration of how films are made

sense of by audiences, these concerns are present in various forms throughout

the thesis. Consequently, where issues of national identity, transatlantic co-

production and the involvement of international personnel become particularly

relevant they are, of course, accounted for by my arguments.

! In terms of national film histories, this thesis can be situated in relation to

other recent projects that have re-examined 1950s British cinema. As Ian

MacKillop and Neil Sinyard note, the decadeʼs British films have often been

67
derided as ʻconservative and dullʼ.76 MacKillop and Sinyard reject this notion

and have edited a collection of essays that seeks to reappraise British films of

the period ʻnot simply as social documents...but also as aesthetic artefactsʼ.77

Their aim to reassess British cinema of the 1950s has similarly been taken up

by Sue Harper and Vincent Porter in their book British Cinema of the 1950s:

The Decline of Deference.78 It also informs Steve Chibnall and Brian

McFarlaneʼs research on British ʻBʼ films and, perhaps less explicitly, Peter

Hutchingsʼ study of British director Terence Fisher, which places his most

famous work from the late 1950s, such as The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

and Dracula (1958), within the context of his wider career.79 The exploration of

British science fiction from this decade presented in the following chapters thus

also belongs within a body of work which has sought to portray 1950s British

cinema as something more than an era of stagnation between ʻthe golden

period of the immediate post-war yearsʼ and ʻthe mould-breaking New Wave of

the early 1960sʼ.80 Although claims that these genre films were sometimes

aesthetically accomplished are largely limited to the discussion of special

effects in Chapter Five, this project does demonstrate that 1950s British science

fiction cinema was more than the disposable pulp that it is often popularly

perceived to be.

! While discussing issues of the ʻnationalʼ, it is also worth problematising

the contextually-focused approach that has dominated much of the work on

1950s science fiction discussed above in relation to its conceptualisation of

national audiences. In many cases, such means of investigating films have led

to the totalisation of a countryʼs cinema-going public. This is suggested, for

example, by Biskindʼs assertion that the gigantic ants of Them! resembled

communists to 1950s Americans.81 Such a claim only makes sense in light of

68
his belief that the American public by and large understood Soviets as a warlike

collective, a generalisation that Biskind does not support with adequate

reference to historical evidence. As I note below, Biskind finds a way to mitigate

this concern, but the same cannot be said for all of the authors who have taken

a similar approach to 1950s science fiction cinema. Bryan E. Vizzini, for

example, discusses the genre as a reflection of ʻthe fears and desires of Cold

War Americaʼ, erasing the possibility that different Americans might have feared

or desired different things.82 Similarly, Jancovich uses a discussion of ʻFordism

and the critique of conformityʼ in 1950s America to facilitate his interpretation of

these films, but such an approach cannot account for the reading strategies of

Americans who might have embraced or desired conformity.83 In much the

same way, Hendershotʼs focus on societal paranoia in the United States

assumes that Americans largely shared similar anxieties about nuclear

technology. In readings such as these, the conflicting meanings that 1950s

science fiction films could generate as a result of their interpretation by a

diverse population are not fully addressed.

! In this sense, the concept of a national audience is inherently

problematic. Denis McQuail has noted that, in terms of television, ʻthe national

audience is heterogeneousʼ since no nation is composed of entirely likeminded

individuals.84 John Hill makes a similar argument in reference to 1940s cinema-

going, claiming that ʻthe “national” audience for British film, even during the

“golden age” of British cinema, was neither as homogeneous nor as socially

representative of the nation as is sometimes assumedʼ.85 Although Hill suggests

that the fracturing of the British audience is largely a feature of post-1960s

cinema-going, his belief that ʻthe national audience is in fact a series of

audiences which are often addressed in different waysʼ is supported by the

69
range of different interpretations that it was possible for audiences of 1950s

science fiction cinema to make, as demonstrated above and throughout this

thesis.86 To presume that the 1950s British cinema audience was homogeneous

and shared a common understanding of public debates would be to obscure the

diversity of its membersʼ viewpoints and opinions.

! Biskind is notable in this regard since, as discussed above, he identifies

a range of political standpoints within 1950s America and explains their

relationship to the countryʼs science fiction cinema. Although he addresses the

presence of these positions within films rather than audiences, his analysis is

able, at least, to gesture towards the diversity of the United States in the 1950s.

His is a rare example of a study that mitigates the difficulties associated with

discussing a national audience and his work consequently provides the

foundations of the model that I use to address this issue. The means by which I

do so are explored in detail later in the chapter.

! Transnational Cultural Transmission

! Although issues of the ʻnationalʼ certainly have a bearing on this thesis,

my interest in the exportation of American films to Britain suggests that some

attention must also be paid to the process of transnational cultural transmission.

Little work on this topic has considered science fiction cinema itself, but the

intellectual frameworks within which scholars have theorised the relationship

between films and international audiences are applicable to my research. This

section outlines some of the significant developments in that regard and

explores how the current study makes use of them in its examination of the

British reception of both American and domestic 1950s science fiction films.

70
! Of particular interest here is the critical attention that has been paid to

the cinema as a site of cultural exchange between Britain and America.

Prominent amongst studies in this field is Sarah Streetʼs Transatlantic

Crossings, an examination of the history of the distribution of British films in

America between the 1920s and 2000.87 Although I am interested in the

opposite process, namely the exportation of US films to Britain, the ways in

which Street addresses her topic are, to an extent, transferable. Street frames

her work as an investigation into specific American historical contexts of the

reception of British cinema. This focus on texts and contexts mirrors the mode

of approach used by many of the studies of 1950s science fiction cinema

discussed above, albeit with a transatlantic slant. Street addresses the

reception contexts that she is concerned with through extensive use of archival

material. She takes advantage of a broad range of historical sources, such as

ʻcritical reviews from a variety of trade papers, newspapers and journals,

together with film publicity, press books and postersʼ.88 Street uses this material

to reconstruct a sense of the American reception contexts within which she

situates British films. Although Street is primarily interested in industrial contexts

of distribution and exhibition, she is also concerned with the socio-political

environment within which Americans watched British films. She writes that ʻit is

illuminating to consider [British films such as] The Private Life of Henry VIII

[1933] in the context of the New Deal and...Drums/The Drum (1938) and The

Four Feathers (1939), in relation to American conceptions of individualismʼ.89 In

this sense, Street reveals how British films ʻdemonstrated qualities that were

appreciated for their difference but at the same time were comprehensible [to

US audiences]. They were also incorporated into contemporary American

concernsʼ.90 As Street notes, ʻwhat emerges is a model of exportation that

71
depends as much on the film itself as on the way it was presented for

consumptionʼ.91 As these comments show, Streetʼs work demonstrates that,

once exported, films are subject to reinterpretation by international audiences

through the codes and debates that constitute their new contexts of reception.

! This is an observation that has been made across a range of studies of

cinematic transnational cultural transmission. Paul Swann, for example, has

explored this process in the late 1940s and early 1950s in The Hollywood

Feature Film in Postwar Britain.92 Taking a similar methodological approach to

Street, Swann examines the industrial, cultural and socio-political contexts that

shaped the reception of American films in Britain during the post-war decade by

drawing on a broad range of historical sources. As noted in the Introduction to

this thesis, Swann argues that the exportation of films from America to Britain

brought them into contact with ʻvery different cultural referencesʼ, resulting in a

process that he terms ʻtransition/translationʼ whereby they were reinterpreted

through their new discursive surround.93 In this sense, Swannʼs approach to

international distribution very closely mirrors that of Street.

! A similar line is taken in the introduction to Melvyn Stokes and Richard

Maltbyʼs collection on the topic of cinematic transnational cultural transmission,

Hollywood Abroad: Audiences and Cultural Exchange. Maltby situates a

comparable model of international cinematic reinterpretation to that outlined by

Street and Swann within a broader, anthropological context. He argues:

One of the paradoxes of transnational cultural history lies in the way in which a
cultural artefact of demonstrable semantic complexity at its point of production and
initial domestic consumption is liable, when exported, first to be simplified and then
rendered semantically complex in different ways by the conventions through which
the artefacts of its originating culture are perceived in the second, host culture.
Hollywood movies are no less liable to this process than West African masks or
Kwakiutl totem poles. 94

Maltbyʼs work thus serves to underline the suggestion made by Swann and

Street that international audiences are able to find in films readings that are not
72
available to domestic audiences because their understanding of the imported

cinema is framed by a different set of cultural codes and debates.

! Maltby, Swann and Street suggest that in order to ascertain the meaning

of a film to a foreign audience one must attempt to understand the specificities

of the relationship between the film itself and the contexts within which it is

watched. As noted during my review of the literature that has addressed both

British and American 1950s science fiction cinema, this type of analysis has

also been exploited in the examination of domestic film reception. The fact that

this focus on the intersection of films and reception contexts has usefully

addressed the relationship between audiences and both domestic and foreign

films suggests its particular relevance to the current project. Drawing on this

model, this thesis can express its principal aim as an exploration of the unique

relationship between mid-century science fiction films, produced both in Britain

and America, and the historically and culturally specific reception contexts of

1950s Britain. This provides a general framework for my investigation in the

chapters that follow, but it is first necessary to be precise about the ways in

which I conceptualise and analyse both the audience and the films that I

explore. There are, after all, a number of different methods through which such

an analysis could approach its material. This task begins below with an

explanation of the ways in which semiotic theory underpins my examination of

the films themselves.

! Cinema Semiotics

! If this thesis is to explore how 1950s science fiction films suggested

different readings in Britain than they did in America, it is necessary to be

explicit about the processes through which it sees cinema acquiring meaning. In

73
this respect, my approach has been influenced by the semiotic tradition that

was established by the work of Ferdinand de Saussure and Roland Barthes.95

There is no need to rehearse these familiar debates in full here, but it is

important to note the key concepts arising from this school of thought and how

the analysis presented in the following chapters employs them. In this sense, it

is only the underlying model of meaning production suggested by semiotic

theory and its use in film studies that it is necessary to posit here.

! Drawing on the work of Saussure, Barthes refers to units of

communication such as words, sounds or images as ʻsignifiersʼ, the phenomena

they allude to as the ʻsignifiedʼ and the ʻassociative total of the first two termsʼ as

the ʻsignʼ.96 As Saussure observed in terms of linguistics, signifiers themselves

are hollow of meaning, distinct from the phenomena that they signify, but able to

refer to them through a mutual understanding of the meaning attributed to the

signifier.97 In this sense, various types of communication can be understood as

sets of symbols with no direct referents, only able to signify as the result of

shared knowledge about how they should be interpreted. As such, semiotics

suggests that the meaning of different forms of communication relies not only

on the signifier itself, but also on the context within which it is understood.

! In terms of cinema, Graeme Turner has described how ʻat the level of the

signifier, film has developed a rich set of codes and conventionsʼ.98 Images,

sounds, camera angles, cutting patterns and numerous other aspects of films

can all be seen as types of signifiers. They bear no immediate or innate

meaning but have become imbued with significance because their audiences

have learned to interpret them in different ways. Turner provides the example of

how ʻat the end of love scenes we might see a slow fade, or a slow loss of

focus, or a modest pan upwards from the loversʼ bodies - all coy imitations of

74
the audiences averting their eyes but all signifying the continuation and

completion of the actʼ.99 This sign is only able to operate because its audience

has the cultural knowledge necessary to make sense of this set of images.

Consequently, Turner is keen to stress the importance of understanding the

cultural contexts within which signification occurs when attempting to assess the

meanings with which signifiers are filled. He argues that ʻaudiences must, in a

sense, bring the set of rules with them into the cinema, in the form of...cultural

knowledge...The role of the audience in determining meaning cannot be

overestimatedʼ.100 As Turnerʼs argument suggests, in order to assess how

particular audiences make sense of a film, it is necessary to understand what

types of meanings they might attribute to its signifiers by investigating the

cultural contexts of reception.

! Turnerʼs semiotic approach to cinema suggests that the meaning of a film

is not to be found solely in the film text or in the cultural contexts of its reception,

but rather in the intersection of the two. As such, it places the role of the

audience and its cultural knowledge at the forefront of questions about the

meanings that films adopt. In order to provide an account of the British

reception of 1950s science fiction, then, the current thesis will investigate how

the context of 1950s Britain shaped the ways in which the signifiers contained

within these films, such as possessed human bodies and gigantic mutated

reptiles, could be interpreted.

! This approach raises the issue of how one perceives the relationship

between textual signifiers, reception contexts and the audience. If the work of

this thesis is to investigate the intersection of an audienceʼs cultural knowledge

and the sounds and images of 1950s science fiction films, what would such an

analysis look like? What sources would it use and with what aims? In answering

75
these questions, this chapter turns to the work of scholars who have been

involved since the mid-1980s in reconceptualising the practice of film history

and whose work has been termed the New Film History. The following section

provides an overview of this area of enquiry, drawing attention to the ways in

which its scholars have theorised the relationship between texts, contexts and

audiences so that later sections of this chapter can demonstrate how these

approaches inform the methodology of the current study.

! The New Film History

! The New Film History is a means of approaching the study of cinema

history that seeks to explore a filmʼs form and meanings by understanding its

relationship to its contexts of production and reception. Initially emerging in the

mid-1980s in the work of David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson,

Robert C. Allen and Douglas Gomery, and Thomas Elsaesser, the New Film

History is often presented as a departure from a more traditional paradigm of

historical research in film studies that ʻtends to focus solely on the text - film

history as the history of films - at the expense of the institutional and cultural

contexts of productionʼ.101 As this claim suggests, in its early years the New Film

History was seen as a means of exploring the style and content of a film in

relation to its circumstances of production, with little consideration paid to

reception. In the earliest works of the discipline, Bordwell, Staiger and

Thompson provided an account of the relationship between the industrial

contexts of Hollywood up to 1960 and the form and style of its output, Allen and

Gomery turned their attention to the historiographical and methodological

concerns of film history, while Elsaesser highlighted a tendency of

contemporary film historians to examine not only the histories of individual films

76
and figures but also the ways in which historical socio-political environments

had influenced cinema production.102 Common to each of these approaches is

an interest in the relationship between film texts and contexts of production. The

New Film History was not immediately concerned with reception contexts,

audiences or their role in shaping cinematic meaning.

! In recent years, however, the New Film History has been heavily

influenced by the rise of reception studies within arts and humanities research

and has borrowed concepts and methods from this fellow discipline. Indeed,

more recent scholars of the New Film History have argued that it has ʻextended

the historical analysis of films from the moment of their production to the

moment(s) of their receptionʼ.103 In this regard, James Chapman, Mark Glancy

and Sue Harper position the New Film History in direct opposition to ʻtheoretical

models of spectatorship, which assumed that cinema audiences responded

monolithically to filmsʼ, a tendency that is also evident in the totalisation of

national audiences by much of the literature that addresses 1950s science

fiction cinema discussed above.104 As such, Chapman, Harper and Glancyʼs

important collection of essays from 2007, The New Film History: Sources,

Methods, Approaches, offers a very different model of the New Film History

than Bordwell, Staiger, Thompson, Allen, Gomery and Elsaesser did two and a

half decades before. For Chapman, Harper and Glancy, reception studies

ʻseeks out evidence of actual audience responses and locates these within the

context of the audienceʼs time, place and identityʼ, and thus informs the New

Film Historyʼs desire to place ʻthe film text at the nexus of a complex and

dynamic set of relationships between producers and consumersʼ.105 In this

sense, the New Film History now shares much in common with what Janet

Staigerʼs early, influential work on historical materialist approaches to historical

77
audiences termed ʻcontext-activated theoriesʼ of reception, or theories in which

ʻhistorical circumstances become central to the accountʼ of reception.106 In other

terms, the New Film History not only has retained its interest in understanding

films as products of particular economic, industrial, cultural and socio-political

contexts, but also has developed a greater awareness of the role played by

audiences in the process by which films come to bear meaning, an awareness

that it shares with both Turnerʼs semiotics and the current thesis.

! However, as the New Film History has developed in this direction it has

run into certain problems. Sarah Street acknowledges in her chapter in The

New Film History that issues of practicality often intrude on research into the

historical contexts of cinema production and reception. Street notes that ʻfor the

historian researching British cinema, there can often appear to be a paucity of

archival source materialʼ, referring to documents produced by studios, censors

and other official bodies.107 The same problems are often also encountered by

reception historians. Studies of contemporary audiences and reception have

thrived because of the availability of consumers with whom media texts can be

discussed and about whom data can be acquired. The same cannot be said of

the audiences that interest the film historian. Perhaps because cinema-going

was, and to a certain extent still is, popularly perceived as a leisure activity

without broader significance, very few audience members keep detailed

accounts of their responses to individual films. Occasionally a diary entry or

similar documentation of personal reflections on a film will be preserved, but this

type of evidence is by its very nature sporadic and only able to account for a

small fraction of a filmʼs audience. Even existent accounts of cinema reception,

such as reviews or letters printed in film magazines, have their limitations in this

regard. Reviews, while certainly useful in giving a sense of how a film might

78
have been received, reflect only a very narrow and privileged range of opinions

that have often been at odds with popular tastes. Similarly, letters sent to and

published by the editors of magazines also present limitations as evidence of a

filmʼs reception. As Jackie Stacey argues, they are often ʻwritten in response to

articles and features...suggesting that the agenda for legitimate topics is largely

framed by the producers of the magazineʼ, skewing the image of a filmʼs

reception that they present.108 Furthermore, ʻthe opinions of more marginal

groups may not be expressed within the established pages of such mainstream

publicationsʼ, while ʻthere has been understandable scepticism about using

letters pages as evidence of audience/reader opinion, since those printed may

well be concocted by office staff at the magazineʼ.109 While sources such as

these certainly have their place within the current study, since they can provide

information about the debates that surrounded 1950s science fiction films on

their British release, their value as evidence of the responses of real audiences

is limited.

! The lack of evidence of the responses of real British audiences of 1950s

science fiction cinema brings this project into contact with the same issues that

Andrew Tudor encountered when he pointed out that ʻeven if todayʼs audience

is accessible to research, yesterdayʼs is not. How, then, can we gain indirect

access to the realm of past practical consciousness?ʼ.110 Tudorʼs question is

resonant of those asked by Annette Kuhn in her study of 1930s cinema-going in

Britain. Kuhn wonders ʻhow do films and their consumers interact? And what, if

anything, can we know about this interaction if it has taken place in the

past?ʼ.111 Tudor sidesteps these issues by reframing his investigation in terms of

the formal qualities of the films he investigates, as discussed above. For Kuhn

the answer is not to search for evidence of historical reception recorded at the

79
time, but rather to question surviving audiences about their cinema-going

histories. However, this approach also brings complications and Kuhn

acknowledges ʻthat particular questions arise concerning the evidential status of

accounts which rely on remembering - and thus also on forgetting, selective

memory and hindsightʼ.112 This does not present a problem for Kuhn, who

embraces these issues by situating her analysis within the context of memory

studies. In her work, Kuhn considers memory ʻas neither providing access to,

nor as representing, the past ʻas it wasʼ; the past, rather is taken to be

mediated, indeed produced, in the activity of rememberingʼ.113 As such, memory

becomes the very topic of Kuhnʼs investigation. However, for a project that does

not examine how films are remembered but how they were received, the type of

evidence provided by memory is insubstantial and the usefulness of surviving

audiences as sources of information about historical reception is limited.

! Of course, the paucity of evidence of the responses of historical cinema

audiences is an issue that has been encountered and addressed by many

scholars of the New Film History. As noted above, academics such as Street

have wrestled with these concerns and in response have suggested alternative

theorisations of the relationship between texts, contexts and audiences that

take these practical issues into account. In this regard, the New Film History

has embraced the study of historical artefacts that are able to speak to the

economic, socio-political and cultural contexts of cinema reception, using these

sources to reconstruct a filmʼs ʻdiscursive surroundʼ.114 This phrase, as noted in

the Introduction, is used by Barbara Klinger to refer to the types of cultural

knowledge that frame a film on its release and through which Turner argued

that a filmʼs signifiers adopt meaning for an audience. As such, the New Film

History has dramatically ʻexpanded the range of primary sources available for

80
the researcherʼ.115 These include ʻmemoirs, personal papers, production files,

scripts, censorsʼ reports, publicity materials, reviews, fan magazines and

Internet discussion groupsʼ, to name but a few, each of which can be employed

in the search for evidence of the contexts within which a film was made and

watched.116

! Historical Reception Studies

! Klingerʼs work, alongside that of Janet Staiger, suggests that some

attention must be paid to the ways in which these different sources are treated

by the reception historian. Staiger, for example, advocates that these sources

ought not to be used to construct a contextual framework through which a film

can be interpreted, but should instead be seen as a means of understanding

the historical ʻeventʼ of interpretation.117 Staiger describes a type of reception

studies that ʻwould be historical, would recognize the dialectics of evidence and

theory, and would take up a critical distance on the relations between spectators

and texts. It would not interpret texts but would attempt a historical explanation

of the event of interpreting a textʼ.118 Staigerʼs emphasis on the historical event

of interpretation suggests that those materials that are most closely connected

to the films themselves, such as reviews or publicity materials, should take

prominence within this type of work because they are more obviously

associated with the films, and hence with the interpretive event, than broader

socio-political contexts.

! Of course, this type of analysis is only possible where such materials are

available to the researcher. As noted above, this is not the case for the current

study. While promotional materials associated with 1950s science fiction cinema

have often been preserved and do inform some of the arguments of this thesis,

81
reviews of these films in British 1950s periodicals and newspapers, although

also available for consultation, are less instructive. They are frequently very

brief and often simply describe the premise of the films and single out one or

two elements, such as the special effects or individual performances, for praise

or scorn. Such reviews offer little information that could be used to assess the

interpretive event, and so cannot provide the evidence necessary to support the

type of reception history that Staiger calls for.

! However, Klinger offers an alternative approach to historical reception

that utilises other types of material which are, in relation to this project, more

useful. In contrast to Staigerʼs belief that cinema historians ought not to attempt

to interpret films through their historical contexts of reception, Klinger argues

that ʻwithout question, historical reception studies has a strong interpretive

dimensionʼ.119 This discrepancy results from the fact that, while Staiger seeks to

explain the interpretive event, thereby implicitly placing the audience and their

interpretations at the centre of her model of analysis, Klinger suggests that:

The viewer in this semantic geography is everywhere and nowhere, neither the
product nor the subject of one particular discourse. The viewer does not exist in
one stable location in relation to the flux of historical meanings around a film, and
therefore cannot be placed conveniently at the centre, the periphery or some other
'niche' within this interaction. Thus, a total history does not tell us...how specific
individuals responded to films: it cannot generally 'pin' the viewer down as subject
to a series of discursive manoeuvres. Instead, it provides a sense of what the
historical prospects were for viewing at a given time by illuminating the meanings
made available within that moment. A totalized perspective thus depicts how social
forces invite viewers to assume positions, giving us a range of possible influences
on spectatorship, without securing an embodied viewer.120

As a result of this move away from the discussion of actual audiences, Klinger

reframes historical reception studies as an investigation of the various

meanings that a film was able to hold at a particular historical moment,

regardless of whether cinema-goers actually produced these interpretations or

not. The readings provided by Klingerʼs model of reception history are not those

82
produced by audiences, but are the scholarʼs own contextually informed

interpretations.

! In practical terms, Klinger argues that the contexts within which a film

can be situated can be 'organized in a progressively outward-bound direction,

beginning with those areas most closely associated with the production of a film

(“cinematic practices”), moving to those technically outside the industry, but

closely affiliated with a film's appearance (“intertextual zones”), and ending with

social and historical contexts circulating through and around its bordersʼ.121

However, the current project is not concerned with cinematic practices and, as

described above, can only make limited use of intertextual zones, such as film

reviews. As a result, the final area of enquiry, namely social and historical

contexts, is the most useful for this analysis.

! For Klinger, this is not to be seen as a problem. She suggests that ʻnot all

of these regions may be equally important to each film analysed. The

researcher attempts to discover which regions seem particularly applicable to

reconstructing the vital relations which comprise the contexts in which particular

films are produced and receivedʼ.122 While in this instance the decision about

which types of historical contextual material to examine has largely been made

as a result of availability rather than applicability, this simply means that the

relations between texts and contexts considered here might not be as ʻvitalʼ as

they could have been if other types of contexts were available for examination.

As such, the analysis performed by this project reflects the authorʼs own

contextually informed readings of 1950s science fiction cinema rather than

those produced by contemporary audiences, and it does this only in relation to

specific, available materials. While it is important to note these limitations, this

83
thesis can still provide a valid assessment of the relationship between British

socio-historical contexts and 1950s science fiction films.

! Of course, histories of reception that follow this model are open to biases

produced by decisions that the scholar makes about which contextual evidence

to include, which to exclude and how to present this material. Such accounts

can be further skewed by the availability of historical evidence, raising questions

about what material is currently inaccessible, what survives in archives, what

does not, how decisions about preservation are made, which individuals and

organisations make them and with what intent. This is an inherent issue in the

approach taken by this thesis and as much as it is a study of historical reception

it is also an account that reflects my own understanding of the period, my

perception of 1950s science fiction cinema and the range of material that has

been available to me. While a broad range of historical sources has been

consulted in an attempt to provide a nuanced account of this decade of British

history, thereby mitigating these limitations as much as is possible, the very

nature of this work demands that it will inevitably reproduce to some extent my

own prejudices and biases and the assumptions that I have made as a result of

the various materials that have either perished or been preserved. As such,

while I do expand our understanding of the British reception of 1950s science

fiction cinema, other accounts could also be presented that would be no less

accurate. The contexts within which this thesis has been produced necessarily

shape its analysis and should be kept in mind by the reader when considering

its arguments.

! Addressing the British reception of 1950s science fiction cinema through

evidence of historical contexts provides a means of investigating the concerns

of this thesis through materials that are available to the modern researcher.

84
However, this theorisation only provides half of the picture and, in order to

return information about the relationship between cinema and reception

contexts, it must be placed in dialogue with the semiotic tradition of formal

analysis that informs my approach to the films themselves. Consequently, the

following section describes how these different approaches relate to one

another and how they will be employed in the chapters that follow.

! Methods

! Drawing on the semiotic model of communication established by

Saussure and Barthes and applied to film analysis by academics such as

Graeme Turner, and the approach to audiences and reception contexts taken

by scholars of the New Film History and studies of transcultural transmission,

this thesis sees meaning in cinema generated when a specific filmʼs signifiers

are interpreted through a perspective informed by its particular national, cultural

and socio-political circumstances of reception. This frames my investigation of

the British reception of 1950s science fiction cinema as an exploration of the

types of issues, debates and knowledge that contemporary British audiences

might have used as an interpretive framework when making sense of specific

images, sequences and moments within these films. In line with developments

made within the New Film History, it is the job of this thesis to uncover historical

evidence of the types of public debates that informed interpretations of science

fiction cinemaʼs signifiers in Britain and to suggest the types of meanings that

were consequently available.

! However, adopting such an approach to audiences means that this study

cannot make claims about how real historical audiences watched 1950s science

fiction films. The evidence necessary to justify making firm and extensive claims

85
about real audiences simply does not exist. What can be done, however, is to

suggest potential viewing strategies that British audiences were likely to have

adopted given their circumstances of reception. While this might be what

Andrew Tudor has termed ʻa second-bestʼ approach to addressing the research

questions asked by the present thesis, it is the most appropriate approach given

the available evidence.123 As such, this study cannot aim to prove that British

audiences found different meanings in 1950s science fiction films to their

American counterparts, but rather to suggest that, given the historical contexts

in which they watched these films, different readings were available to them.

! Comparable approaches are not unfamiliar in the study of 1950s science

fiction and similar conjecture is present in the work of those critics who have

advanced the Americo-centric readings of the genre that this thesis expands

upon. As noted in the literature review presented above, these scholars have

also often used the contexts of a filmʼs production and reception to address its

audiences. Only very limited evidence of the responses of real American

audiences was available to authors such as Biskind and Jancovich and so they

too had to make assumptions based on the contexts within which 1950s

science fiction films were watched. However, this thesis draws on a greater

wealth of documentary evidence of the discursive surround of these films than

the majority of other equivalent studies and the readings that it suggests are

consequently based on a more thorough assessment of their reception contexts

than has been the norm. Crucially, this type of approach still allows the thesis to

undermine the popular assumption that American readings of the genre can be

applied to British audiences by highlighting their inability to account for British

contexts of reception.

86
! Since I am interested in the ways in which particular issues were

discussed and understood by 1950s Britons, the historical sources that are

drawn on in assessing these debates were largely publicly available and

broadly consumed at the time. Newspapers are a particularly useful resource

since they were both readily obtainable and widely read. They were a daily

presence in the lives of many Britons and so were able to shape public debate

in a powerful way. Letters ostensibly written by members of the public printed in

newspapers also offer a glimpse of public sentiment. The concerns about the

bias and reliability of such correspondence noted earlier in the chapter remain

relevant, but they do not diminish the fact that, genuine or not, letters pages

were widely read in 1950s Britain and so helped to shape the public discussion

of the topics that are examined in the following chapters. A range of newspaper

archives have been consulted in researching this thesis, with a variety of

political affiliations being represented. The Daily Mirror, The Times, The

Observer and The Manchester Guardian are particularly prominent because

their archives have been digitised, making the examination of a large quantity of

relevant material more accomplishable. This has allowed a more representative

sample of articles and letters to be selected for discussion here, making my

characterisation of the debate about particular issues more evenhanded than

would otherwise have been possible.

! Other sources, too, are used to provide evidence of the nature of public

debates, notably the newsreels that were routinely shown before films in British

cinemas during the 1950s. These are particularly useful to the current project

since they would have been fresh in the minds of British audiences as they

watched their chosen science fiction feature, thereby increasing the possibility

that they inflected the readings that audiences performed. The vast majority of

87
newsreels shown in British cinemas in previous decades are now listed in the

British Universities Newsreel Database, compiled by the British Universities

Film and Video Council, and many have been digitised and made available on

the internet by NewsFilm Online. The newsreels discussed in the remaining

chapters have largely been accessed via this resource, but some were also

viewed at the North West Film Archive in Manchester. The particular location of

each of the sources cited is provided in the relevant reference.

! This thesis also makes use of sources that were produced to accompany

the release of 1950s science fiction films, such as posters and advertisements.

These materials framed the films on their initial release and helped to shape the

ways in which the genre came to be understood. They can now either be found

in the press books that were distributed in support of the films, many of which

are now kept in the British Film Institute National Library in London, or in the

pages of popular British film journals and periodicals from the 1950s, such as

Picturegoer and Picture Show. These publications also contain reviews,

previews and articles about 1950s science fiction films that formed part of their

discursive surround and as such are of particular use to this project. A large run

of issues of both titles from the 1950s is housed at the Insight Collections and

Research Centre at the National Media Museum in Bradford and has been

consulted during the preparation of this thesis.!

! Elsewhere, sources that were not publicly available are used in the

chapters that follow where it becomes necessary, for example, to ascertain the

private attitudes of public figures or to assess the inner workings of government

bodies. These sources cannot speak directly to my discussion of the public

perception of particular topics in 1950s Britain, but they can sometimes inform

that analysis in particular ways. The remaining chapters draw on the wealth of

88
material available at the National Archives at Kew, including letters to and from

senior politicians and records of their private meetings. Despite not being able

to speak to the shape of 1950s British public debate, each of these sources has

its own relevance to the current projectʼs investigation and will be introduced

within the text of the chapters that follow where required.

! In practical terms, the main discussion chapters of this thesis follow a

clear structure. Each will explore a prominent public debate in 1950s Britain,

including communism, immigration, nuclear technology, science and imperial

decline, examining the forms in which it circulated and the types of meanings

that it accrued. After characterising the relevant public debate through reference

to the historical evidence described above, the chapters turn their attention to

the ways in which it inflected the meaning of signifiers contained within specific

films. These sections thus employ an historically inflected form of textual

analysis that identifies specific features of a shot or sequence and relates them

to the historical material presented earlier. This allows an examination of how

particular signifiers were filled with meaning by the public debates that shaped

their audiencesʼ perspectives.

! However, this method of analysis must avoid treating the British audience

as a monolithic entity that related to public debates in a uniform fashion. As

noted above, such issues have arisen in previous studies that have addressed

audiences through national contexts of reception. Biskindʼs work offers a model

for accounting for audience diversity that can be utilised here. I have already

described how Biskind identifies a range of political positions adopted by

various 1950s American science fiction films and is therefore able to avoid

totalising the genreʼs stance on particular issues.124 Similarly, this study seeks

to highlight the complex and multifaceted nature of the British national audience

89
by discussing the range of perspectives that were present within it. As such, the

structure of this thesis has been devised to make visible the oppositional

attitudes to particular issues or topics that were present in 1950s Britain. Each

chapter has been divided into two sections, both of which present contrasting

views of the public debate under discussion and its inflection of 1950s science

fiction cinema. The following chapter, for example, begins by discussing British

hostility to communism and the ways in which it might have shaped the

reception of two 1950s science fiction films, It Came from Outer Space (1953)

and Quatermass II. The second half of the chapter then turns its attention to

more positive, or at least tolerant, messages about communism that were

presented to the British public during the 1950s. These are then used as a

means of re-evaluating the films discussed in the first half of the chapter,

suggesting oppositional readings that British audiences might also have made.

As such, each chapter presents two different approaches to the issue that it

addresses, and consequently explores two different readings of the two films

under discussion. This thesis thus accounts for a variety of different attitudes

that were present in 1950s Britain and suggests that an equally broad range of

readings of the science fiction films of the era were produced. As a result, the

totalisation of the British national audience is reduced.

! The two films examined in each chapter have been selected for three

reasons. Firstly, they are often representative of how a variety of other films

within the genre operate, allowing my conclusions to have as broad a relevance

as possible across significant numbers of 1950s science fiction films. In this

regard, it is appropriate that my case study films feature many of the classic

narrative devices that the genre employed during the decade, including alien

invasions, gigantic monsters, nuclear testing gone awry, possessed human

90
bodies, unethical scientists and angry mobs of conformists. Films that could

have been subject to similar readings are, therefore, noted within the text of

each chapter. Secondly, the case study films represent a number of different

types of 1950s science fiction films that were released in Britain during this

decade. Big budget genre classics, such as It Came from Outer Space,

contrasted with much cheaper productions, such as The Trollenberg Terror

(1958), while space adventures, such as It! The Terror from Beyond Space

(1958), were screened alongside gigantic monster movies, such as Behemoth

the Sea Monster. Each of these films is analysed in the chapters that follow,

alongside a number of other, often radically different, features, allowing the

thesis to account for the variety of the genre during the 1950s. Thirdly, as noted

in the Introduction, the films that are discussed represent the cinema of the two

nations that produced the vast majority of science fiction that was screened in

British cinemas during the 1950s, namely Britain and America. Of course, genre

films from other countries were also released in Britain, but never with the

frequency of their British and American counterparts. To reflect this, one of the

films analysed in each of the following chapters is British and the other is

American.

! Despite these attempts to focus on films that offer a balanced

representation of the science fiction that was screened in Britain during the

1950s, there will always be films that do not fit within the norms and which

cannot be accounted for by this type of generalisation. Examples of such films

will occasionally be noted in the text of the thesis, with their own idiosyncrasies

indicated, but there will always be exceptions and the conclusions that I reach

are not intended to apply unproblematically to every example of 1950s science

fiction cinema.

91
Notes
1 The body of literature that addresses 1950s science fiction cinema is extremely expansive
and, as a result, this review is not intended to be exhaustive. Those authors whose work most
clearly demonstrates the intellectual contexts within which this thesis operates are discussed
here. Other authors will be cited in the remaining chapters where their arguments become
relevant.
2Sontag, Susan. 2004. ʻThe Imagination of Disasterʼ, in Redmond (2004: 40-47). (Originally
published in 1965). p.44
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid. p.47.
6 Ibid. p.46.
7Vieth, Errol. 2001. Screening Science: Contexts, Texts, and Science in Fifties Science Fiction
Films. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. p.181.
8Sobchack, Vivian. 2001. Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film. 2nd edn.
Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press. (Originally published in 1987). p.21.
9 Telotte, J. P. 2001. Science Fiction Film. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp.98-99.
10 Vieth, Errol. 2001. Screening Science: Contexts, Texts, and Science in Fifties Science Fiction
Films. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. p.181.
11Humphries, Reynold. 2002. The American Horror Film: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press. p.57; Crane, Jonathan Lake. 1994. Terror and Everyday Life. London: Sage.
p.107.
12Hendershot, Cyndy. 1999. Paranoia, the Bomb and 1950s Science Fiction Films. Bowling
Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. p.1.
13 Ibid.
14Hendershot, Cyndy. 1998. ʻDarwin and the Atom: Evolution/Devolution Fantasies in The
Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Them!, and The Incredible Shrinking Manʼ, Science Fiction
Studies. Vol. 25, No. 2. July. pp.319-225.
15 Hendershot. Paranoia, the Bomb and 1950s Science Fiction Films. p.134.
16Sontag. ʻThe Imagination of Disasterʼ. p.44; Hendershot. Paranoia, the Bomb and 1950s
Science Fiction Films. p.127.
17 Skal, David J. 1993. The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror. London: Plexus. p.247.
18Phillips, Kendall R. 2005. Projected Fears: Horror Films and American Culture. Westport, CT:
Praeger. p.50.
19 Ibid.
20Booker, M. Keith. 2001. Monsters, Mushroom Clouds and the Cold War: American Science
Fiction and the Roots of Postmodernism, 1946-1964. Westport, CT: Greenwood. p.105-106;
Geraghty, Lincoln. 2009. American Science Fiction Film and Television. Oxford: Berg. pp.24-35;
Lev, Peter. 2003. The Fifties: Transforming the Screen 1950-1959. Berkeley and Los Angeles,
CA: University of California Press. p.171; Clareson, Thomas D. 1990. Understanding
Contemporary American Science Fiction: The Formative Period, 1926-1970. Columbia, SC:
University of South Carolina Press. p.40.
92
21 Crane. Terror and Everyday Life. p.102.
22Newman, Kim. 2011. ʻMutants and Monstersʼ, in Jones, McCarthy and Murphy (2011:55-71).
p.56.
23Biskind, Peter. 2001. Seeing is Believing. London: Bloomsbury. (Originally published in 1983);
Swann, Paul. 1987. The Hollywood Feature Film in Postwar Britain. Beckenham: Croom Helm.
p.56.
24 Biskind. Seeing is Believing. p.103, 104, 106 and 111.
25 Ibid. p.111.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid. p.111 and 140.
28 Ibid. p.132.
29 Ibid. p.112.
30
Booker, M. Keith. 2006. Alternate Americas: Science Fiction Film and American Culture.
Westport, CT: Praeger. p.65.
31Grant, Barry Keith. 2010. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. London: BFI. pp.63-69; Rawlinson,
Mark. 2009. American Visual Culture. Oxford: Berg. p.48; Young, William H. and Nancy K.
Young. 2004. American Popular Culture Through History: The 1950s. Westport, CT:
Greenwood. p.197; McRoy, Jay. 2007. ʻ“Our Reaction Was Only Human”: Monstrous
Becomings in Abel Ferraraʼs Body Snatchersʼ, in Hand and McRoy (2007: 95-108). pp.96-97.
32Geraghty. American Science Fiction Film and Television. p.20; Jancovich, Mark. 1996.
Rational Fears: American Horror in the 1950s. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p.17.
33 Booker. Alternate Americas. p.66
34Gianos, Phillip L. 1998. Politics and Politicians in American Film. Westport, CT: Praeger. p.
140.
35 Grant. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. p.68.
36 Jancovich. Rational Fears. p.64.
37 Grant. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. pp.8-9.
38 Jancovich. Rational Fears.
39Although Jancovichʼs work addresses the horror genre, he spends a considerable portion of
his book discussing the types of films that are addressed by the current thesis.
40 Jancovich. Rational Fears. p.29.
41 Ibid. p.17.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid. p.29.
44 Ibid.
45
Noonan, Bonnie. 2005. Women Scientists in Fifties Science Fiction Films. Jefferson, NC:
McFarland. p.4.
46 Ibid. p.48.
47 Ibid.
93
48 Biskind. Seeing is Believing. pp.133-35 and 138.
49Heffernan, Kevin. 2004. Ghouls, Gimmicks, and Gold: Horror Fils and the American Movie
Business, 1953-1968. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. pp.16-42; Sanders, Steven M.
2008a. ʻPicturing Paranoia: Interpreting Invasion of the Body Snatchersʼ, in Sanders (2008b:
55-72).
50Tsutsui, William M. 2007. ʻLooking Straight at Them!: Understanding the Big Bug Movies of
the 1950sʼ, Environmental History. Vol.12, No.2. April. pp.237-253 at p.237.
51 Geraghty. American Science Fiction Film and Television. p.20
52 Lucanio, Patrick. 1987. Them or Us. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
53 Ibid. p.viii.
54 Ibid. p.64.
55Geraghty. American Science Fiction Film and Television. p.20; Jancovich. Rational Fears. p.
17.
56 Booker. Alternate Americas. p.65; Lucanio. Them or Us.
57Hutchings, Peter. 1999. ʻ“Weʼre the Martians Now”: British SF Invasion Fantasies of the
1950s and 1960sʼ, in Hunter (1999b: 33-47) p.33.
58 Ibid. p.36.
59 Ibid. pp.35-36.
60
Hutchings, Peter. 1993. Hammer and Beyond: The British Horror Film. Manchester:
Manchester University Press. pp.37-50.
61
Conrich, Ian. 1999. ʻTrashing London: The British Colossal Creature Film and Fantasies of
Mass Destructionʼ, in Hunter (1999b: 88-98).
62 Ibid. p.88.
63 Ibid. p.96.
64 Street, Sarah. 2009. British National Cinema. 2nd edn. Abingdon: Routledge. p.88.
65Chibnall, Steve. 1999. ʻAlien Women: The Politics of Sexual Difference in British SF Pulp
Cinemaʼ, in Hunter (1999b: 88-98).
66 Chibnall, Steve and Brian McFarlane. 2009. The British ʻBʼ Film. London: BFI. pp.282-284.
67 Hutchings. ʻ“Weʼre the Martians Now”ʼ. pp.36-38.
68 Conrich. ʻTrashing Londonʼ. p.88.
69 Street. British National Cinema. p.88; Hutchings. ʻ“Weʼre the Martians Now”ʼ. p.43.
70
Tudor, Andrew. 1989. Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
71 Ibid. p.6.
72Higson, Andrew. 2000. ʻThe Instability of the Nationalʼ, in Ashby and Higson (2000: 35-47). p.
35.
73 Ibid. p.36.

94
74Higson, Andrew. 1995. Waving the Flag: Constructing a National Cinema in Britain. Oxford:
Clarendon; Hill, John. 1992. ʻThe Issue of National Cinema and British Film Productionʼ, in
Petrie (1992: 10-21); Hill, John. 1997. ʻBritish Cinema as National Cinema: Production,
Audience and Representationʼ, in Turner (2002: 165-173).
75 Street. British National Cinema.. p.1.
76
MacKillop, Ian and Neil Sinyard. 2003. British Cinema of the 1950s: A Celebration.
Manchester: Manchester University Press. p.2.
77 Ibid.
78Harper, Sue and Vincent Porter. 2003. British Cinema of the 1950s: The Decline of
Deference. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
79
Chibnall and McFarlane. The British ʻBʼ Film; Hutchings, Peter. 2001. Terence Fisher.
Manchester: Manchester University Press.
80 MacKillop and Sinyard. British Cinema of the 1950s. p.2.
81 Biskind. Seeing is Believing. p.132.
82Vizzini, Bryan E. 2009. ʻCold War Fears, Cold War Passions: Conservatives and Liberals
Square Off in 1950s Science Fictionʼ, Quarterly Review of Film and Video. Vol.26, No.1.
January. p.38.
83 Jancovich. Rational Fears. pp.18-25.
84 McQuail, Denis. 1997. Audience Analysis. London: Sage Publications. p.55.
85Hill, John. ʻBritish Cinema as National Cinema: Production, Audience and Representationʼ, in
Turner (2002: 165-173). p.168.
86 Ibid. p.170.
87Street, Sarah. 2002. Transatlantic Crossings: British Feature Films in the United States.
London: Continuum International.
88 Ibid. p.4.
89 Ibid. p.8.
90 Ibid. p.2.
91 Ibid.
92 Swann. The Hollywood Feature Film in Postwar Britain. p.5.
93 Ibid.
94Maltby, Richard. 2004. ʻIntroduction: “The Americanisation of the Worldʼ, in Stokes and Maltby
(2004: 1-20). p.2.
95Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1959. Course in General Linguistics. Charles Bally and Albert
Sechehaye, (eds). Translated by Wade Baskin. New York: McGraw-Hill. (Originally published in
1916); Barthes, Roland. 2000. Mythologies. London: Vintage. (Originally published in 1957).
96 Barthes. Mythologies. p.113.
97Storey, John. 2006. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction. Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice Hall. p.87.
98 Turner, Graeme. 1999. Film as Social Practice. 3rd edn. London: Routledge. p.56.

95
99 Ibid.
100 Ibid. p.57.
101
Chapman, James, Mark Glancy and Sue Harper. 2007a. ʻIntroductionʼ, in Chapman, Glancy
and Harper (2007b: 1-10). p.3.
102 Bordwell, David, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson. 1985. The Classical Hollywood
Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960. London: Routledge; Allen, Robert C. and
Douglas Gomery. 1985. Film History: Theory and Practice. New York: Alfred A. Knopf;
Elsaesser, Thomas. 1986. ʻThe New Film Historyʼ, Sight and Sound. Vol.55, No.4. Autumn. pp.
246-51. For a good overview of each of these contributions, see Chapman, Glancy and Harper.
ʻIntroductionʼ. pp.5-6.
103 Chapman, Glancy and Harper. ʻIntroductionʼ. p.6.
104 Ibid.
105 Ibid. pp.6-7.
106Staiger, Janet. 1992. Interpreting Films: Studies in the Historical Reception of American
Cinema. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p.45.
107
Street, Sarah. 2007. ʻBritish Cinema, American Reception: Black Narcissus (1947) and the
Legion of Decencyʼ, in Chapman, Glancy and Harper (2007b: 201-214). p.201.
108
Stacey, Jackie. 1994. Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship. London:
Routledge. p.55.
109 Ibid.
110
Tudor, Andrew. 1989. Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p.5.
111Kuhn, Annette. 2002. An Everyday Magic: Cinema and Cultural Memory. London: I.B. Tauris.
p.3.
112 Ibid. p.9.
113 Ibid.
114
Klinger, Barbara. 1997. ʻFilm History Terminable and Interminable: Recovering the Past in
Reception Studiesʼ, Screen. Vol.38, No.2. Summer. pp.107-28.
115 Chapman, Glancy and Harper. ʻIntroductionʼ. p.7.
116 Ibid.
117 Staiger. Interpreting Films. p.81.
118 Ibid.
119 Klinger. ʻFilm History Terminable and Interminableʼ. p.112.
120 Ibid. p.114.
121 Ibid. p.113.
122 Ibid.
123 Tudor. Monsters and Mad Scientists. p.5.
124 Biskind. Seeing is Believing. p.103, 104, 106 and 111.

96
 Section A:

The Invading Other

97
 Chapter Two: The Communist and the Other in 1950s Science

Fiction Cinemaʼs Depersonalisation Narratives

! Introduction

! In 1955, the British Council floated the idea of organising two film

festivals, one in Britain screening films from the Soviet Union and the other

behind the Iron Curtain, showcasing British cinema to the Soviets. The Council

itself might have anticipated a cultural exchange, but the involvement of George

Jellicoe, a Foreign Office official who handled Soviet relations, suggests that the

possibility of spreading pro-western propaganda in Moscow, Leningrad and

Kiev had not been overlooked. Jellicoe himself certainly intended to seize this

opportunity, describing the event to the Council as ʻa rare opportunity for giving

wide masses of Soviets an inkling of life in the West and of Western art and

cultureʼ.1 However, despite the rarity of this opportunity, in December 1956 the

Chairman of the British Council informed A. A. Roschin at the USSR Embassy

that British ʻpublic opinionʼ would make the reciprocal film festivals impossible.2

Perhaps there was such a depth of anti-communist sentiment in Britain that the

display of Soviet art in London was intolerable, or perhaps citing ʻpublic opinionʼ

was a diplomatic way for the Foreign Office to deny the Soviets their own

propaganda opportunity. In either case, the cancellation of such a strategically

valuable event suggests that sections of 1950s Britain saw Soviet cinema as

potentially very dangerous.

! This was not the only moment in which cinema became a battleground in

the Cold War ideological struggle. The 1950s science fiction boom has often

also been understood in this light. As noted earlier, critics have frequently

interpreted those US films that feature a depersonalisation narrative, in which

98
aliens possess or duplicate human bodies, as expressions of American

anxieties about communist infiltration and influence. Peter Biskindʼs argument is

worth citing again in this context: ʻpossession by [alien] pods – mind stealing,

brain eating and body snatching – had the added advantage of being an overt

metaphor for Communist brainwashingʼ.3 As indicated in the previous chapter,

Biskind is far from alone in making this claim. M. Keith Booker, for example, has

argued that ʻthe notion of stealthy invaders who essentially take over the minds

of normal Americans, converting them to an alien ideology, resonates in an

obvious way with the Cold War fear of communist subversionʼ.4 For these

scholars, depersonalisation films, including classics of the genre such as

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and It Came from Outer Space (1953),

connect the alien with communism, at least as it was imagined by many

Americans, since both alter a personʼs internality in a way that is not betrayed

by external, visible signifiers.

! However, because this interpretation of the depersonalisation narratives

is predicated on an American perception of communism, it cannot explain the

responses of audiences outside of the United States. In countries where

brainwashing and infiltration manifested in public debate in different forms or

where the Soviets were not deemed to be a threat, these films might have been

understood quite differently. As the first half of this chapter demonstrates, Britain

was one country where the communist threat was articulated differently than it

was in America in the 1950s. This raises the possibility that the figure of the

alien Other was also understood in different terms on opposite sides of the

Atlantic, as suggested by 1950s British film magazine Picturegoerʼs claim that

the depersonalisation film Red Planet (released in 1952 as Red Planet Mars)

was ʻabout Mars, not Communismʼ.5 Sarah Street has explored the differences

99
between British and American science fictionʼs Others in terms of the formal

qualities of the films themselves, claiming that ʻwhereas American horror and

science-fiction films of the period tend to configure the monster, the ʻOtherʼ, as

relating directly to the ʻRed menaceʼ, i.e. Communism, the British generic

variation is slightly differentʼ.6 While later chapters share Streetʼs interest in the

other public concerns that shaped British readings of 1950s science fiction

cinema, this chapter argues that communism was as likely to have inflected

interpretations of these films in Britain as it was in America, but that the specific

nature of British public debates about the issue would have framed the figure of

the alien Other in unique ways.

! This chapterʼs analysis of 1950s British public debates about

communism accounts for two different perspectives on the topic. It begins by

addressing the ways in which anti-communist sentiment was expressed and the

impact that it might have had on the interpretation of the alien Other in science

fiction cinema. The first section below demonstrates that some aspects of the

debate displayed a concern with Soviet brainwashing that was similar to that

which has been observed in America. However, in Britain subversion and

indoctrination were articulated not as local threats to the neighbourhood, as

Amy Maria Kenyon has indicated was the case during the US ʻreds under the

bedsʼ scare, but as threats to what one might call the British Establishment.7

This is a term that I use to mean those individuals or groups perceived to

represent the British state during the 1950s, amongst whom the key groups

discussed in the analysis that follows are the military and the diplomatic

services. Each was, in its own way, an emblem of Britain and, as my argument

shows, each was perceived at various times during the 1950s to be under threat

from communist infiltration. The first section of this chapter consequently

100
demonstrates that debates about communist subversion in Britain differed from

those in America during the 1950s.

! The next section explores the ways in which this aspect of 1950s British

anti-communist public debate might have inflected the interpretation of two

depersonalisation films. Both It Came from Outer Space and Quatermass II

(1957) feature the alien inhabitation, replication or appropriation of human

bodies, situating their extraterrestrials alongside those that Biskind has claimed

Americans understood as analogues for communists.8 However, as this section

shows, anxieties about the infiltration of the Establishment made it possible for

Britons to draw unique connections between the aliens of these films and

communism that would not have been suggested by the discursive environment

on the other side of the Atlantic.

! The chapter then goes on to examine a different aspect of the 1950s

British public understanding of communism. Though there was little pro-

communist sentiment evident in public debate at that time, there is evidence to

suggest that Britain was in some ways more even-handed than America in its

treatment of communists themselves. Building on Reg Whitakerʼs observation

that the McCarthyist witch hunts of the US were never repeated on British

shores, a number of examples of British tolerance towards communists during

the 1950s are explored.9 In examining the softer stance taken by some in

Britain, this section complicates our understanding of how the so-called Soviet

menace was perceived during the 1950s by demonstrating that not all Britons

were party to the staunchly anti-communist sentiment outlined during the first

half of the chapter. This new discursive context is then used by the final section

to renegotiate the meaning of both It Came from Outer Space and Quatermass

II, demonstrating how they might have been made sense of by a Britons who

101
were either tolerant of or sympathetic towards communism. Drawing attention to

the ways in which these films encourage identification with or greater

understanding of the alien Other, it is argued that this often overlooked aspect

of some 1950s depersonalisation narratives might have encouraged Britons to

reject the demonisation of the communist Other.

! By examining readings of 1950s science fiction cinema suggested by its

relationship to Britainʼs multifaceted attitude towards communism, this chapter

demonstrates that many divergent and often oppositional interpretations of the

genre could have been produced in Britain. Though the previous chapter noted

that scholars have also described a range of readings of these films that were

available to their American audiences, the British interpretations outlined here

differ from their US counterparts because they have been produced in relation

to a different set of public debates. This chapter thus contributes to the

overarching aims of the thesis by differentiating between British and American

understandings of the relationship between communism and the alien,

demonstrating that US readings of 1950s science fiction films that discuss this

connection cannot necessarily speak to the experiences of British audiences.

! Characterising Public Debate: Anti-Communist Sentiment in 1950s

Britain

! There were a number of causes for the inflammation of anti-communist

sentiment in Britain during the 1950s, but most significant for this chapter was

the emergence of a series of defectors within the British Establishment.

Perhaps most famous were Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, who were

converted to communism at Cambridge University during the 1930s and who

had spied for the Soviets while working in the Foreign Office and the diplomatic

102
services before their flight to Moscow in 1951. Their defections contributed to

what Sheila Kerr frames as a 1950s loss of confidence in the British

Establishment.10 This section demonstrates that defections such as these

focused British anxieties about communist influence and infiltration on the

Establishment itself rather than on the community, as had been the case in the

United States.

! An early example of the threat posed to the British Establishment by

infiltration and defection came in 1953 during Operation Big Switch when

prisoners from both sides of the recent Korean War were exchanged. The war

itself, fought between June 1950 and July 1953, pitted the capitalist Republic of

Korea, with backing from the UN, including Britain and the United States,

against the communist Democratic Peopleʼs Republic of Korea, supported by

the USSR and the Peopleʼs Republic of China. One of the main stumbling

blocks during the peace negotiations that concluded the war was the

communist nationsʼ insistence that all captured personnel be returned to their

home countries, whether they wanted to go or not. America in particular

objected, wishing to allow Korean troops to defect. Eventually the communist

countries relented, but only on the understanding that western personnel too

would not be forced to return home. During the conflict, one thousand and sixty

British servicemen and women went missing or were taken prisoner.11 Though

few opted to remain in China and the Democratic Peopleʼs Republic of Korea, a

handful of Americans and one Scot chose to stay behind when their fellow

prisoners of war were repatriated. Royal Marine Andrew Condron refused to

return to Britain, choosing instead to remain behind in communist China where

he remained ʻlively and cheerfulʼ and began teaching English at the Peking

Language Institute.12

103
! While Callum MacDonald is correct that ʻthe bitter debate about

collaborationʼ that occurred in America after the revelation that not all of the

countryʼs soldiers would be returning home ʻnever occurred in Britainʼ, this

should not be confused with the British public being either unaware of or

uninterested in Condronʼs defection.13 Though he never worked for the Soviets

and did eventually return to Britain in the early 1960s, contemporary media

reports reveal that during the 1950s Condron was framed by British public

debate as a traitor. The Manchester Guardian, for example, reported that

Condron and the American defectors ʻrode off into North Korea...and carried

banners bearing the Picasso peace dove, portraits of Mao Tse-tung, and North

Korean flagsʼ.14 As Patrick Brantlinger argues, the British military had a long

history of being glorified by the public during the colonial era and had only

recently returned victorious from the Second World War, so the suggestion that

one of their troops had been surrounded by pacifist and communist imagery

while waving the flag of the enemy would have likely generated a certain

degree of public concern.15

! Condronʼs defection was not the only incident to have raised suspicion

about communist infiltration in the British Armed Forces during this period. In

October 1953, three months after the end of the Korean War, The Times

reported that fusilier Patrick E. Lyndon, a prisoner of war who had been

released by the communist allies, had been arrested on his return to Britain and

made to appear before a court martial on charges of ʻcowardice in the face of

the enemyʼ.16 Lyndon now seems to have had no intention of defecting and was

simply frightened by the violence that surrounded him in Korea, but The Times

reported that ʻLyndon muttered towshon, which was Chinese for “I surrender”ʼ

while cowering on the floor of a trench.17 Given this eventʼs proximity to

104
Condronʼs defection, the suggestion that Lyndon had learned some Chinese,

and indeed that he had learned that particular phrase, was enough to create at

least a hint of treachery. To make matters worse, Lyndon was ʻwith the first

group of returning prisoners of war from Koreaʼ, souring what would otherwise

have been a joyous period of celebration at the return of Britainʼs war heroes.18

! These were not merely isolated incidents. There was a series of similar

revelations of apparent communist influence in the British military and the

militaries of other comparable western nations. In 1956, The Manchester

Guardian reported that the War Office had accused ʻDriver Douglas Thomson,

of Old Aberdeen, who had been recalled as a reservist to 120 Company,

R.A.S.C.ʼ of being ʻan active communistʼ.19 In 1951, The Observer suggested

that there was significant communist influence in the French ʻcivil service, army

and policeʼ.20 In 1952, The Times recorded an organised attempt by Greek

communists to infiltrate that nationʼs army.21 The US military was the subject of

a series of investigations led by various Senators, notably the infamous Senator

Joseph McCarthy, into alleged communist sympathies, each reported in British

newspapers.22 Throughout the early 1950s, the British were confronted with the

notion that western militaries around the world were susceptible to communist

influence. The cases of Condron, Lyndon and Thomson underlined the severity

of this threat at home, demonstrating that the British armed forces were far from

immune to communist subversion.

! Via media reporting, cracks had begun to appear, however fine, in the

edifice of the British armyʼs image and reputation. Her Majestyʼs Armed Forces,

a well respected emblem of the British Establishment both at home and abroad,

had been tainted by the suggestion that communist-influenced traitors lurked in

its ranks. In 1955, Condron cemented this idea by writing a piece for the

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communist propaganda pamphlet, Thinking Soldiers: By Men Who Fought in

Korea.23 Decades earlier, the World War One poets, such as Wilfred Owen and

Siegfried Sassoon, had begun to disillusion the British public about the nature

of war by recording its true horror. In a similar manner, albeit to a lesser extent,

media reports about Condron, Lyndon and Thomson contributed to the

disillusionment of the British public about their Establishment, a process that

would continue throughout the 1950s and 1960s via events such as the Suez

Crisis, discussed in more detail in Chapter Five, and the Profumo Affair.

! An even more sensational example of communist infiltration in the British

Establishment was provided by the disappearance and eventual reappearance

of Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, the two spies mentioned briefly above.

Maclean, a Foreign Office official, and Burgess, an intelligence officer based at

the British embassy in Washington, caused great public intrigue when both

vanished from Macleanʼs family home on the evening of his thirty-eighth

birthday, 25th May 1951. Despite the offer of a £1000 reward, no concrete

information on their whereabouts was forthcoming. As the years passed, public

interest in the case refused to die down and suspicion of Soviet involvement

began to mount. Government figures in Britain attempted to avoid press

questions on the affair, but Anthony Adamthwaite has argued that this was

ultimately counterproductive since ʻthe clumsy attempts at damage limitation

only served to keep the hue and cry in full swingʼ.24 There were frequent reports

of sightings of the missing officials from across Europe, sometimes in Paris,

sometimes in Kiev, but always just out of reach of reporters and officials so

none could be qualified. So strong was public interest in the case that even

three years after the disappearances The Times was still using Burgess and

Maclean to sell largely unconnected stories. For example, in a report on the

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defection of Vladimir Petrov, ʻthe former third secretary at the Soviet Embassy in

Canberraʼ, The Times reported that ʻa spokesman said yesterday that from

information so far received in London it is clear that Petrov has no first-hand

knowledge of the [Burgess and Maclean] affair and no detailed knowledge

whatsoeverʼ.25 Petrovʼs defection was significant in its own right, but The Times

ran this story under the headline ʻNo News of Burgess and Macleanʼ,

presumably unafraid of advertising the lack of content in the story because the

draw of these names alone would attract a readership.

! In 1956, half a decade after their initial disappearance, both diplomats

finally reappeared at a Moscow press conference, speaking to confirm their

defection to the USSR. In Britain, despite years of public suspicion, there was

widespread shock at the notion that Foreign Office officials could have been

working for the Soviets. As Sheila Kerr indicates, ʻin British newspapers stories

about Burgess and Maclean became more aggressive after their appearance in

Moscowʼ.26 In reporting the text of Burgess and Macleanʼs statement from

Moscow, for example, The Times used the subheading ʻGrounds for Fearʼ.27 In

the statement itself this phrase refers to Maclean and Burgessʼ grounds for

fearing that the British and American authorities were not actively seeking

peace with the USSR, but abstracted from this context as a subheading it reads

more like a description of the statementʼs contents to the British reader. If

figures so prominent in the British political and diplomatic Establishment had

been secretly working for the Soviets then truly there were grounds for fear. The

ensuing sense of public outrage at this case was of such significance that the

Royal National Lifeboat Institution declined a donation from Burgess that he

made in lieu of payment for an article that he wrote for the Sunday Express. The

R.N.L.I. announced:

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 The institution is a charity which serves the people of all nations in peace and in
war. It has no concern with politics and it is continuously in need of funds, which it
welcomes from all quarters. However, in the peculiar circumstances in which this
sum of money has been offered, the institution feels compelled to decline the
offer.28

The fact that ʻa charity which serves the people of all nations in peace and in

warʼ and ʻis continuously in need of fundsʼ was unwilling to accept a donation

from Burgess suggests the depth of feeling about his defection in 1950s Britain.

! The press did little to quell these concerns in the weeks that followed the

Moscow press conference, habitually referring to Burgess and Maclean through

linguistic constructions that simultaneously stressed both their positions in the

British Establishment and their defection. Phrases such as ʻthe British

diplomatists who went over to Russiaʼ or ʻthe British diplomat who disappeared

from Britainʼ, typical of the ways in which the British press identified Burgess

and Maclean during 1956, contained a microcosm of their defection.29 By first

establishing their status as British diplomats before reminding the reader that

they abandoned their homeland, this type of phraseology ensured that, for

months after the truth about the disappearances was revealed, the British public

were still being reminded that communists had successfully infiltrated the

diplomatic services and that the British Establishment was vulnerable to such

threats.

! However, the army and the diplomatic services were not the only sectors

of the British Establishment that were seen to be under pressure from the

Soviets. As James Rusbridger has pointed out, the ʻdefections of Burgess and

Maclean...naturally came as a great shock to the British establishment and were

embarrassing because of the inept way MI5 handled the matterʼ, suggesting

that Britainʼs secret services were failing to protect the nation from the

communist threat.30 Furthermore, in their initial statement from Moscow

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Burgess and Maclean repeatedly stressed their involvement with specific

prestigious institutions in Britain. They wrote, for instance, that ʻat [the University

of] Cambridge we had both been Communistsʼ and that they had joined the

diplomatic services ʻbecause we thought, wrongly it is now clear to us, that in

the public service we could do more to put these issues into practical effect than

elsewhereʼ.31 This statement, run in a respected national newspaper, made it

quite clear that the Foreign Office and the University of Cambridge, both

institutions at the heart of the British Establishment, had contained communist

agents. Indeed, Burgess and Maclean indicated that the Foreign Office itself

was a significant draw for communist sympathisers intent on revolution. As

such, the secret services, the university system and the Foreign Office joined

the broader diplomatic community and the army as sectors of the British

Establishment that were perceived to be vulnerable to Soviet infiltration during

the 1950s.

! Despite raising concerns about the British Establishment, each of the

defections discussed in this section was closely associated with foreign

locations. Lyndon and Condron were both supposedly corrupted far away from

home in Korea. Although Burgess and Maclean became interested in

communism while studying at Cambridge, they only fell under press scrutiny

after they fled Britain and were only confirmed as communists in the public eye

after they emerged in Moscow. Indeed, Maclean worked within the Foreign

Office and so was professionally involved with other nations, while Burgess had

been based abroad, albeit in Washington, prior to his disappearance. In this

sense, the threat to the Establishment was not characterised by its association

with the local as, for example, in Americansʼ fears of communists operating in

their own communities, but was largely imagined to originate outside of Britainʼs

109
borders, only to be brought into the country by those officials that it corrupted.

As this shows, although America and Britain were seemingly united in their

opposition to communism during the 1950s, this opposition did not manifest

uniformly in the two countries and the fear of Soviet infiltration was often felt

differently on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

! Reading 1950s Depersonalisation Narratives: Anti-Communist Attitudes

and the Alien Other

! In late 1953, as Jack Arnoldʼs science fiction classic, It Came from Outer

Space, made its way through the cinemas of Britainʼs town and cities, its listings

shared space in Britainʼs newspapers with reports of Andrew Condronʼs refusal

to return home after the Korean War and Patrick E. Lyndonʼs supposed

intention to defect. In this climate Arnoldʼs film might have been particularly

relevant since it presents a world of mistrust and suspicion in which familiar

figures leave the safety of their known surroundings only to return possessed by

an alien invader. According to Peter Biskind, depersonalisation narratives such

as this were read in America as warnings about the communist brainwashing

which ʻhad just turned GIs into Reds in Koreaʼ, a reading predicated on the

similarity between US perceptions of communist collectivism and the victims of

alien dehumanisation.32 However, it is not the dehumanisation itself that makes

It Came particularly relevant to British concerns about the subversion of the

Establishment, but the fact that Arnoldʼs film presents unfamiliar locations as

corruptive. Given that Britain had seen figures such as Condron and Lyndon

influenced by an unfamiliar ideology while away from home in Korea, It Came

might have allowed Britons to explore their own anxieties about the communist

infiltration of the British Establishment abroad. Similarly, Britainʼs own

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Quatermass II, a film that portrayed public figures under the influence of alien

invaders, was released in the aftermath of the Burgess and Maclean defections,

raising the possibility that its own vision of an infiltrated British Establishment

might have been relevant to the contemporary concerns of British viewers. By

connecting the alien Other and its depersonalised victims with the figure of the

defector in the British Establishment, this section suggests that the atmosphere

of mistrust into which both of these films were released might have allowed their

various signifiers to give voice to contemporary concerns about Soviet influence

in Britain.

! It Came from Outer Space tells the story of John Putnam who, alongside

his girlfriend Ellen Fields, witnesses the crash landing of an alien spacecraft in

the desert near the Arizonian town of Sand Rock. Mistaken for a meteor by the

locals, the ship is hidden in its crater by falling rocks and Putnamʼs protestations

about what he saw out in the desert are ignored. When some of the locals,

including Fields, begin to act strangely, Putnam tracks the creatures that

escaped from the spacecraft to a nearby mine. Here, one of the aliens explains

that they have been replicating the bodies of particular humans in order to

infiltrate society and acquire materials to fix their spaceship. Before Putnam can

help, the locals begin to suspect that they are under threat and form an angry

mob outside the mineshaft. Putnam holds them back long enough for the craft

to be repaired and the aliens depart, releasing their prisoners before they leave.

! Scholars have tended to be cautious when positioning this film in relation

to the threat of communist brainwashing as it was perceived in America during

the 1950s. Mark Jancovich, for example, has argued that ʻif the film resembles

the depersonalisation narratives in which the townspeople are replaced by

apparently cold, robotic aliens, the situation is not used to suggest the “rational

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conformity” of the aliens, but rather it is used to play with the audienceʼs

perceptions and expectationʼ.33 For Jancovich, It Came is subversive in its use

of the depersonalisation narrative and does not connect the alien with the type

of brainwashed conformity that commentators such as Biskind saw in American

stereotypes of communists.34 Similarly, in a DVD special feature that

accompanied the 2002 release of It Came, Paul M. Jensen points out the

fallacy of positioning the aliens as invaders or infiltrators since they ʻdonʼt want

to be here. They didnʼt come to meet us. They didnʼt come to tell us

anything...Their car broke downʼ.35 Scholars have instead tended to see It

Came as an attack on the anti-communist hysteria that took root in America in

the 1950s. Peter Biskind has argued that the film ʻbegins as a radical-right film,

but is gradually transformed into a left-wing film as it becomes clear that the

aliens mean us no harmʼ.36 This is a perspective shared by the filmʼs director,

Jack Arnold. He tells us:

It Came from Outer Space certainly did talk about hysteria, paranoia, all these
things - that was the whole point...The moral of It Came from Outer Space is: Donʼt
destroy things just because you donʼt understand them.37

! Although I agree that there is nothing in the film itself to suggest that it

was intended as a discussion of the communist threat, the ways in which its

paranoia is constructed held particular resonance with 1950s British fears that

Soviets were converting Establishment figures when they went abroad. Within

the context of a British audience newly aware of Andrew Condronʼs defection

deep inside enemy territory and Patrick Lyndonʼs suspected treachery on the

battlefields of Korea, it is significant that It Came from Outer Space posits the

threat of possession as something that occurs elsewhere, outside of known

society. To construct this sense of a dangerous ʻelsewhereʼ the film poses the

familiarity and security of the town against the dangers of the desert that

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surrounds it. In this regard, I disagree with scholars such as Mark Jancovich

who have framed the desert as a welcome, if slightly eerie, respite from the

repressive ʻconformity and intoleranceʼ of the town.38 For Jancovich, the desert

is ʻused to illustrate the insignificance of the town and its experiences in

comparison to the vastness of natureʼ.39 Although I agree that the town

represents stifling conformity, Jancovichʼs characterisation of the desert as a

positive space ignores the lengths to which the film goes to stress its

inhospitableness. At one point Putnam takes Fields out into the desert and,

staring resolutely out at the vast expanse, announces that ʻitʼs alive...Oh no, itʼs

alive and waiting for you, ready to kill you if you go too far. The sun will get you,

the cold at night. A thousand ways the desert can killʼ. The desert is certainly ʻa

place of beauty and mysteryʼ, as Jancovich asserts, but its beauty, though

alluring, has a nightmarish quality.40 It is presented as both drastically

dangerous and radically Other, marking it as a place in which human society

does not, and perhaps cannot, exist. Although ultimately the aliens in the

wilderness are more enlightened than the people of the town, who eventually

become an angry mob, the desert is characterised as a place outside of

civilisation.

! This contrast between the radically unknowable desert and the familiar, if

repressive, town allows the film to represent unfamiliar places as transformative

spaces into which people stray and are never the same again. George and

Frank, two telephone line technicians who become the first humans to have

their identities stolen by the aliens, live in the town but work in the desert. It is

while out on a job that they are attacked and replicated. Only when they leave

the familiarity of civilisation do they become contaminated by the alien

presence. Similarly, the second group of people to be attacked also go missing

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while out in the wilderness and Fields herself is duplicated after being abducted

from a desert highway. Indeed, every time the aliens kidnap a victim and steal

his or her identity, the attack is staged in the desert. The desert is thus

characterised as a dangerous hinterland into which people disappear and return

altered. In It Came from Outer Space, the impression is given that leaving the

confines of the familiar exposes one to the risk of possession and

dehumanisation.

! This is not an idea that is unique to It Came from Outer Space. The

contaminative ʻelsewhereʼ is a trope that appeared in a number of science

fictionʼs depersonalisation narratives throughout the 1950s. The British film The

Quatermass Xperiment (1955), whose sequel will be discussed later in this

section, tells the story of Victor Caroon, an astronaut who returns to the

familiarity of Earth from the wilderness of space infected by an alien life form.

Invaders from Mars (1954) sees a boyʼs father go to investigate the mysterious

landing site of a flying saucer only to return cold, distant and dehumanised. The

titular beasts of Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957) take on the voices and

personalities of humans who leave the relative security of their base camp for

the local jungles. In each of these examples, as in It Came from Outer Space,

unfamiliar spaces are posited as dangerous places in which people become

possessed by alien forces.

! This sense that unfamiliar locations could be contaminative and

depersonalising was mirrored in the eraʼs reports of British defectors. By 1953,

when It Came from Outer Space was released, Burgess and Maclean had

already fled Britain for a then-unknown location. As speculation about their

communist leanings gathered, their flight tied together notions of the Soviet

infiltration of the Establishment and the dangers that lurked outside of Britainʼs

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familiar borders. Similarly, the defection of Andrew Condron in Korea framed

him as a representative of the Establishment who had ventured into unfamiliar

terrain and had become possessed by communist ideology. Indeed, The

Manchester Guardian stressed that he and his fellow defectors had ʻsuccumbed

to Communist “brainwashing”ʼ while fighting abroad.41 Just like Condron, Patrick

Lyndon was also posited as a man who had left the security of the familiar,

ventured into the Korean unknown and had there fallen victim to a dangerous

outside influence. In these terms, their journeys mirrored those made by Ellen

Fields, George and Frank in It Came from Outer Space, Victor Caroon in The

Quatermass Xperiment, the boyʼs father in Invaders from Mars and the many

others who fell victim to possession in the wildernesses of 1950s science fiction

films. That Fields as a schoolteacher and Caroon as an astronaut represented

the educational and military Establishments respectively could only have served

to underline such connections since the Establishment was one of the principal

sites on which British fears of communist infiltration were focused. These

depersonalisation narratives were thus of relevance to the British public debate

about communist indoctrination and infiltration.

! Not all 1950s science fiction films require this level of decoding in order

to find within them a commentary on communist infiltration. Quatermass II,

adapted by the famed British film studio Hammer from a 1955 BBC TV serial

and released in cinemas in 1957, contains much more obvious allusions to the

subversion of the Establishment than It Came. In this film, Professor Bernard

Quatermass has been having trouble securing funding to establish a human

base on the moon. Distracted from these frustrations by a shower of unusual

meteorites over Wynerton Flats, he goes to investigate only to discover a

version of his lunar site constructed out in the British countryside. After being

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removed from the area by a group of armed men with strange markings on their

skin, Quatermass meets with Vincent Broadhead, a Member of Parliament, and

arranges an ill-fated tour of the facility. Their visit to the site leaves Broadhead

dead and Quatermass is chased from the complex. Believing the structure to be

housing the vanguard of an extraterrestrial invasion force which has possessed

the guards and various senior officials, Quatermass joins up with a group of

disgruntled locals who have been involved in construction work at the plant and

storms the site. Once inside, he exposes the aliens to oxygen, reasoning that

Earthʼs atmosphere could be toxic to them. However, the creatures emerge

from the domes that have been housing them and, towering above the facility,

begin to destroy their surroundings. Identifying an orbiting asteroid as the

staging post for the invading army, Quatermass orders his assistant to launch a

rocket to destroy it. This plan succeeds and the monsters are instantly defeated.

The strange marks vanish from the bodies of those who had fallen under their

influence and life returns to normal.

! Quatermass II had its premiere on 24th May 1957 and began circulation

on 17th June. These dates are significant because they indicate that the film

was watched in Britain during a period of heightened anxiety about communist

infiltration of the Establishment. It had only been four months since Burgess and

Maclean spoke to the press in Moscow to confirm their defection, an event that

reignited fears of communist subversion and refocused suspicion on the

Establishment, specifically the Foreign Office. As Quatermass II was ushered

into British cinemas, this story was still filling the pages of Britainʼs newspapers.

The Manchester Guardian, for example, reported on an American investigation

of the spies on 24th May, just ten days before the film received its premiere.42

On 14th July, a little under a month after the film was released in Britain and

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while it was still being screened in some of the nationʼs cinemas, the same

paper announced a trip made by Burgessʼ mother to Moscow to visit her son.43

Hammerʼs Quatermass II entered the British public consciousness at a time

when communist influence within the Establishment was still a very prominent

issue.

! Given this context of reception, it is telling that Peter Hutchings has

identified ʻa kind of iconoclasmʼ present in the transformation of ʻthe Shell

Haven Refinery in Essexʼ, where the external shots of the secret facility were

filmed, ʻinto an alien baseʼ.44 For Hutchings, ʻone consequence of this mixing of

the familiar and the strange, with the strange often concealed within the familiar

and close to home, is that audiences are invited to look at their own world in a

different light, seeing it to a certain extent as itself an alien worldʼ.45 This

alienation of the familiar mirrors the British perception of the Establishment

during this period, with trusted individuals, institutions and organisations

suddenly subverted and rendered ambiguous.

! Quatermass IIʼs narrative, replete with secretive invaders and their

traitorous, possessed and frequently influential agents, was ripe for

interpretation as an expression of anxieties about Soviet brainwashing and the

British Establishment. Bill Warren has argued that Quatermass II goes one step

further than even Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the quintessential American

depersonalisation film, in its paranoia because ʻthe aliens are already in control

of the government (or at least part of it) when the story opensʼ (Warrenʼs

emphasis).46 Government signs warn visitors away from the plant, while ʻan

official government announcementʼ attempts to cover up Broadheadʼs

disappearance. Senior police figures are also shown to have the strange

markings, the signs of alien possession, on their skin. The aliensʼ control over

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the government and the police is particularly significant since both of these

institutions represent the British Establishment. The political commentary that

Quatermass II might have offered to its domestic audiences is barely obscured,

with the filmʼs possessed Establishment figures representing the brainwashed

Establishment figures of the British public imagination. In this sense, the alien

Other served as an obvious allusion to the communist Other since both were

framed as the bearers of a dangerous and subversive influence over the British

Establishment. This reading was even suggested by the promotional materials

that surrounded the film, for example in the stress that Picture Show magazine

placed on the involvement of the Establishment in the invasion when it explicitly

described the alien base as ʻa Government secretʼ.47 The filmʼs paranoid vision

of powerful British public figures acting against their own people while under the

influence of an alien invasion force played out a national fantasy of communist

infiltration of the Establishment that had been inflamed when Andrew Condron

refused to return home from Korea four years earlier and which had been

reinvigorated just four months before by the confirmation from Moscow of

Burgess and Macleanʼs defection.

! While It Came from Outer Space allowed Britons to negotiate their

anxieties about communist infiltration by mirroring their concerns about the

contaminative and dangerous nature of unknown and unfamiliar places,

Quatermass II invoked these same fears in a different manner by explicitly

depicting the subversion of the British Establishment. Crucially for this project,

these readings resulted from the particular nature of British fears of Soviet

subversion, demonstrating that the nationʼs uniquely inflected anxieties

produced specifically British readings of 1950s science fictionʼs

depersonalisation narratives. Although these British readings were sometimes

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superficially similar to their American counterparts, in that both connected the

perceived infiltration of a society by communists with the possession of human

bodies by alien creatures, they were not identical and were not arrived at in the

same way.

! Characterising Public Debate: Tolerance Towards Communists in 1950s

Britain

! Despite the fears expressed by some Britons about the subversion of the

Establishment, it would be unfair to characterise the nation itself as essentially

anti-communist during the 1950s, particularly in the early years of the decade.

The anxieties about Soviet infiltration outlined above presented only one aspect

of the public understanding of communism. Although in the later years of the

decade, and certainly in the decades to follow, Britainʼs stance towards the

USSR and the spread of communism would harden, there is some evidence to

suggest that, at the outset of the 1950s at least, British public opinion on the

matter was much more varied than it would become. Curtis Keeble, for

example, draws attention to the popular ambivalence towards communism

during the early 1950s when he argues that ʻthere was in fact little concern with

the Soviet Union in the British general elections of 1950 and 1951ʼ.48 Moreover,

David Childs has suggested that support for the Communist Party of Great

Britain was significant in workersʼ unions as diverse as the National Union of

Mine Workers, the Amalgamated Engineering Union, the Clerical and

Administrative Workers and the Scientific Workers during this era.49 He writes

that ʻeven in the Transport and General Workersʼ Union (TGWU), Bert

Papworth, the Communist busmenʼs leader, had been elected in 1944 as one of

its two representatives on the Trades Union Congress (TUC) General

119
Councilʼ.50 Although the swell of support in many workersʼ unions was not

repeated throughout the British population at large, it does indicate that there

was at least one small pocket of Britons who were positively disposed towards

communism. This section builds on that suggestion, showing that the British

were much more diverse in their attitude towards communism than the first half

of the chapter allowed for.

! The way in which the defection of Andrew Condron was reported in some

British newspapers suggests an underlying tolerance towards communism and

communists in sections of 1950s British society. The Manchester Guardian,

itself a left-leaning newspaper, reported in 1953 that Condronʼs father had sent

his son a letter begging him to return to Scotland. He told the paper in late

September that ʻI didnʼt reproach him but told him how we had been looking

forward to going to Southampton to meet him. Even if he has become a

Communist why doesnʼt he come home? He can be a Communist here if he

wants toʼ.51 The public suggestion that it would be acceptable for Condron to

live openly as a communist in Britain draws a marked contrast to the anti-

communist hysteria of the United States at this time. As Ellen Schrecker

describes in her history of McCarthyism, so fearful were the American

authorities of the threat of communism that the right to free speech, so

fundamental in the US, was placed at risk.52 Condronʼs fatherʼs public

expression of his belief that communists could live freely in Britain stands in

sharp relief to that type of repressive anxiety. While this is certainly not evidence

of widespread or official tolerance of communism in Britain, and is perhaps best

viewed in the context of a fatherʼs grief at his separation from his son, the

following days and weeks saw no letters published in The Manchester Guardian

to refute Condronʼs fatherʼs assessment of the situation or to chastise his desire

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to welcome a communist into Britain. While it is certainly possible that such

letters were received but not printed by the newspaper, Condronʼs fatherʼs

suggestion that Britain was, to some extent, tolerant of communism entered the

public consciousness unchallenged and untempered.

! Other debates held elsewhere in the public sphere similarly suggest that

the public attitude towards communism in Britain during the 1950s was less

extreme than that which was being adopted in America. One such debate

focused on the role of the BBC in the British general elections of 1950, 1951

and 1955. As Andrew Defty points out in his study of British and American

collaboration on anti-communist propaganda, although the BBC cooperated

with government efforts in this area, there was a significant divide between the

bombastic tone of the US propaganda broadcasts, which were branded as the

Voice of America (VOA), and the BBCʼs own, more measured output. Defty

indicates that ʻthe most vigorous anti-communists preferredʼ the VOA to the

BBC because, as he quotes Christopher Warner, Assistant Secretary at the

Foreign Office responsible for the Information Research Department, there was

a sharp contrast between ʻthe vigorous American and the balanced Britishʼ

material.53 Other historians, too, have argued that the BBC had a problematic

relationship with the nationʼs official anti-communist stance. Although, as John

Jenks writes in his assessment of the British news media during the Cold War,

ʻwhen the government shifted to open anti-communism in early 1948 the BBC

followedʼ, he characterises the BBC as being slow moving in this regard and

suggests that it consequently became a cause for concern amongst the British

authorities.54 In March of that same year the BBC dismissed three personnel as

a result of their suspected communist sympathies, but even this did little to ease

official concerns and shortly afterwards one MP informed the House of

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Commons that he believed there still to be significant communist influence

within the broadcaster.55 Despite the fact that, as Defty notes, the BBC would

carry anti-communist propaganda in later years, in the early 1950s its political

outlook was not as clear-cut.56

! One example of the BBCʼs antagonistic relationship with the anti-

communist efforts of the government came as early as 1950, when The Times

reported that the broadcaster had been attacked in the House of Lords for

allowing ʻthe continuation of a harmful series called “Soviet Views”ʼ.57 This radio

programme, more widely known as The Soviet View, was broadcast on a

monthly basis beginning in 1948 and continuing until 1958. The broadcasts

comprised a digest of news and comment taken from Soviet domestic media.

Given his well documented anti-communist stance, it is hardly surprising that

Lord Vansittart, who delivered this attack on the BBC in the House of Lords,

would be angered that Soviet opinions were being distributed to the British

people by the national broadcaster itself, but he was not alone in his outrage.

The Times shared Vansittartʼs dim view of this programme. ʻCould anything be

more mistakenʼ, the newspaper asked, ʻthan to give the Communists

broadcasting time during the election?ʼ 58 The article even quotes Vansittart

himself who argues that ʻwhat is fundamentally wrong is that the BBC share the

delusion that Communism is just another philosophy. Either they must change

that notion or we must change managementʼ.59 Both Vansittart and The Times

were clearly deeply angered by the BBCʼs decision, providing further evidence

that, as Jenks suggests, the shift in BBC policy against communism was slow

enough to be perceived by some as providing tacit support to the extreme

political left during this transition period.60

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! The fact that a programme such as The Soviet View was aired by

Britainʼs public service broadcaster during the 1950s adds weight to the

argument that communism was treated differently by some in Britain from the

way it was treated in the US. Given that Senator Joseph McCarthyʼs anti-

communist witch hunts were at their height during this period, with the media

coming under particularly intense scrutiny, it would have been all but impossible

for a similar programme to have been broadcast in America. Perhaps the

closest that the US media came to this was Edward Murrowʼs celebrated 1954

editions of See It Now, a national news and documentary television series, in

which he challenged McCarthyʼs staunchly conservative and reactionary

outlook. Although Robert L. Ivie has claimed that the public response to these

broadcasts meant that ʻMcCarthyʼs iron grip on public opinion had been brokenʼ,

attested to by the fact that his political career went into decline shortly after

Murrowʼs broadcasts, it would be a mistake to presume that this was the end of

strident anti-communist sentiment in the United States.61 Susan L. Brinson, for

example, has traced the Red Scare not through McCarthyism but through the

work of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and found that it

continued in some form until at least 1960.62 Into the mid-1970s the US was

engaged in the Vietnam War in an attempt to combat the spread of communism

abroad. Murrow clearly did not end Americaʼs anti-communist hysteria, but even

if he did rein in its worst domestic excesses his contribution never went to the

extreme of giving communist commentary a platform in the national media,

unlike The Soviet View did in Britain. Up until the end of the 1950s the US

media was scrutinised to varying degrees for pro-communist sentiment, but in

Britain the BBC was actively engaged in giving voice to Soviet perspectives.

Both nations held impassioned debates about communist sympathies in the

123
media, but, because of the different degrees to which this altered the regulatory

atmospheres in the two countries, the BBC was able to go much further than

any US television or radio station could by providing communists with airtime.

! Vansittartʼs anger had little effect on BBC policy in 1950 and the following

year similar complaints were made by Lord Craigavon, the president of the

Listenerʼs Association, in relation to the broadcasting of the opinions of the

Communist Party of Great Britain. According to The Manchester Guardian,

Craigavon complained that the BBC had allowed ʻwhat may often appear

unreasonable minorities...to continue to express their views. This is dangerous

and appears to give a loop-hole for the broadcasting of Communist

propagandaʼ.63 Despite the gathering force of Establishment opinion against it,

the BBC maintained that it was obliged to treat all significant political parties in

an equal manner and that it was not a decision but a duty to give airtime to the

Communist Party. As Andrew Crisell argues, the BBC ʻwas, and is, obliged...to

provide a political balanceʼ in its reporting.64 Although this should not be

misconstrued as the BBC offering support to the Communist Party, by featuring

them in its programming it did afford them an air of legitimacy that their

American counterparts could only have dreamed of. Although it was later

reported that the BBC refused to allow the Communist Party to broadcast its

views before the 1955 election, this decision was reportedly taken on the

grounds that at that point it did not have enough support to qualify for airtime

according to the BBCʼs regulations.65 Despite the actions of Joseph McCarthy

and the FCC in America, in Britain the Communist Party was treated, by the

BBC at least, like any other political party in the early and mid-1950s.

! In this context, perhaps Condronʼs fatherʼs suggestion that his son could

have lived in Britain as a communist seems more realistic. There were other

124
communists living openly in Britain, a national Communist Party that had a

voice on the BBC and a regular slot on the radio given over to commentary from

within the Soviet Union. Although this is insufficient evidence on which to base a

claim that Britain was not overwhelmingly anti-communist in the 1950s, it does

seem that some institutions and some individuals projected into the public

sphere the idea that Britain, while not being overtly welcoming to communists,

was at least tolerant of them, and certainly more so than America. Indeed, as

early as 1948 at least one British official had voiced the opinion that ʻBritain

could use its influence to encourage the Americans to be more subtle in their

[anti-communist] propagandaʼ.66 While there was an ever increasing suspicion,

fuelled in part by the media, that the Establishment was vulnerable to

communist infiltration, these anxieties were tempered by another, perhaps more

marginal, strand of public debate that sought to afford communists the same

rights and privileges as everyone else. While America was attempting to purge

the spectre of Soviet influence from both public and private life, Britain, while

certainly not pro-communist, was more nuanced in its approach to the issue.

The communist might have been a political Other for most Britons, but it was

not always a source of anxiety.

! Reading 1950s Depersonalisation Narratives: Tolerance of the

Communist and the Alien Other

! The readings of 1950s depersonalisation narratives outlined in the first

half of the chapter were unlikely to have occurred to Britons who did not

recognise communism as a source of anxiety. These individuals understood

Soviet Otherness in different ways to those who held firm anti-communist

beliefs. As this section argues, such perspectives allow a different range of

125
meanings to emerge from It Came from Outer Space and Quatermass II. I

suggest below that the depersonalisation narratives were able to offer validation

of the belief that the Other was not something to provoke anxiety but to be

better understood. By breaking down the familiar binary of good human/bad

alien, the readings outlined below suggest the outlook of those within British

society who, while they might still have equated the communist and the alien

Other, did not necessarily recognise this Otherness as a source of fear. In the

words of Jack Arnold, director of It Came, these films told their audiences not to

ʻtry to read evil into what is not understandable. And donʼt be afraid of the

unknownʼ.67

! It Came suggests such readings through its use of point of view shots.

This first becomes apparent during an early encounter with an alien creature as

it follows Fields and Putnam along a desert highway. As these characters drive

home, one of the aliens suddenly appears and looms before them in the road.

The camera is positioned in the back seat of the car, looking over the human

charactersʼ shoulders and through the windscreen at the creature. The

audienceʼs viewpoint consequently approximates that of Putnam and Fields.

This type of shot has frequently been understood by scholars such as Jackie

Stacey as one means by which a film can foster identification between its

characters and the audience, suggesting that It Came here encourages its

viewers to share Putnam and Fieldsʼ horror at the alien.68

! However, the same technique is also used elsewhere in the film to

subvert this pattern of identification. The film contains several sequences in

which the cameraʼs perspective matches that of one of the creatures. After the

first alien emerges from the crashed ship and begins exploring the surrounding

landscape, for example, a point of view shot is used to suggest that the

126
audience is seeing the scene through the eyes of the creature. This is

emphasised by the superimposition of a series of strange, undulating circles in

the centre of the image, presumably a feature of the alienʼs physiology of sight.

This sequence, which invites the audience to share the alienʼs point of view,

reverses the perspectives at work in the desert highway scene, encouraging

identification not with the humans, but with the creature. As such, It Came

refuses to allow its audience to demonise the alien Other, asking them instead

to consider events for both human and alien viewpoints.

! There is some evidence that a number of British viewers both understood

and enjoyed this manipulation of perspectives. In Picturegoer magazine,

Donovan Pedelty stressed how effective he believed ʻArnoldʼs directorial trick of

putting us behind the enormous eye of the visitor from outer spaceʼ to be.69

Henry Lane, from the same publication, picked up on the fact that the aliens of

this film were not ʻvillainously moronic monsters: they behave in a reasonably

credible human fashion - or better-than-human fashionʼ.70 Although such

reviews do not overtly connect the point of view shots with the filmʼs refusal to

demonise the alien, both of these features were commented on in the British

press, suggesting that they did have resonance for British audiences.

! Perhaps this aspect of It Came might have been particularly appealing to

Britons who had been exposed to the viewpoints of communists through the

BBC, both during the 1950 and 1951 elections and via The Soviet View, and

had found them to be different but not threatening. While Lord Vansittart and

Lord Craigavon framed communists as radical and dangerous Others, the BBC

had shown that this was not necessarily the case, treating both the Communist

Party of Great Britain and Soviet commentators fairly and allowing communist

perspectives to inform national debates. For many in Britain, not least Andrew

127
Condronʼs father, the communist was not necessarily seen as the enemy during

the 1950s. That messages of tolerance towards the Other could also be found

in It Came from Outer Spaceʼs treatment of its aliens suggests that this was a

film that was capable of speaking to the concerns of those sections of British

society that did not share the paranoid anti-communist attitudes evident

elsewhere in the country and in the United States.

! The relationship that Quatermass II bore to the communist Other in

1950s Britain can be similarly complicated. Peter Hutchings, for example, has

interpreted the section of the film in which the locals, led by Quatermass, break

into the facility, occupy the pressure control room and attempt to kill the invasion

force as a ʻrepresentation of industrial workers rising up to fight their alien

bossesʼ.71 Hutchings is primarily interested in the commentary that this

sequence makes on social issues, arguing that it should be seen within the

context of a film that ʻprovides a more political and class-orientated account of

1950s Britain than does its predecessorʼ and which ʻrecords the weakening of

old class ties as workers are shifted to new housing estatesʼ.72 There is also,

however, another reading of the revolt that could be made, since images of

workers overthrowing their masters might well have been seen in 1950s Britain

as an implicit suggestion of communist activity. Communism was predominantly

understood at that time as a political philosophy that was of particular relevance

to workers, a notion suggested most prominently through the title of the

newspaper of the Communist Party of Great Britain, The Daily Worker. Indeed,

before the 1950 general election Harry Pollitt, General Secretary of the

Communist Party, complained publicly that his partyʼs political broadcast was

scheduled ʻat a time when many workers will not be home from workʼ, thereby

underlining the importance of the workforce to the communist agenda.73 As

128
such, the workerʼs revolt in Quatermass II could be read as a bold, communist-

influenced call to action. From that perspective, the insidious alien masters do

not stand in for communism, as was suggested during the first half of the

chapter, but for capitalism and its exploitation of the workers. The simplicity of

this reading, in which workers represent workers and the alien management at

the factory represents the management at ordinary factories, suggests that it

would have been all the more likely to occur to 1950s British cinema-goers.

! This reading can also be extended to address the 1950s so-called

creature features that will be the focus of Chapter Four. These films, such as

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), Beginning of the End (1958) and

Behemoth the Sea Monster (1959), often saw gigantic beasts devastating major

western cities, most often New York and London. Although the revolt sequence

towards the end of Quatermass II is certainly more easily interpreted as a

display of the power of the workers against their exploitative masters, many of

the creature features also present a world in which a new, radical force awakes

to challenge the established order. For British communist sympathisers, there

might have been particular pleasure in seeing capitalist metropolises and their

iconic landmarks crumble beneath the might of a rampaging Other.

! Of course, this reading of Quatermass II does not merely suggest that

communism is nothing to fear, but actually endorses resistance to capitalism.

While It Came was able to suggest that aliens, and hence communists, were

not dangerous monsters, Quatermass II could go further still and suggest that

communism was not an Other at all and could provide a useful means of

resisting exploitation. Perhaps this would have endowed Quatermass II with

greater appeal to those Britons in the workersʼ unions that David Childs

suggests had communist sympathies, such as the National Union of Mine

129
Workers, the Amalgamated Engineering Union, the Clerical and Administrative

Workers and the Scientific Workers.74 It Came and Quatermass II were both

capable of addressing audiences who did not find communism a cause for fear

or alarm, but Quatermass II was a more subversive film in this regard and was

more likely to be relevant to those who were already positively predisposed to

communist ideology.

! Conclusion

! This chapter has described a variety of meanings that 1950s science

fictionʼs depersonalisation narratives adopted in the context of different British

attitudes towards communism, but, as noted in the previous chapter, it was not

only Britons who found these films open to a range of such readings. Scholars

have similarly suggested that American anxieties about communism also

inflected mid-century science fiction cinema in a number of different ways. For

some US audiences these films underscored fears of Soviet infiltration in the

community, while for others they reflected concerns about the anti-communist

witch hunts led by Senator Joseph McCarthy.75 Crucially, however, the readings

that this chapter has suggested were made by Britons were not the same, or

were not arrived at in the same way, as those that other authors have argued

were made by Americans. There has been no suggestion, for example, that

Americans ever found in the genre a call to empathise with, or even tolerate, the

communist Other, while readings predicated on fears of an invaded

Establishment emerged out of uniquely British socio-political circumstances.

British and American readings of the depersonalisation narratives differ because

they resulted from dissimilar national contexts of reception in which the Soviet

threat was articulated in different ways. This chapter has drawn attention to a

130
number of these points of divergence. Britons, for example, often imagined

communist brainwashing to occur beyond their borders, while Americans were

more likely to be concerned about their own neighbours.76 The BBC aired

commentary from the USSR, which would have been largely unthinkable in the

more restrictive US media environment. As a consequence of such disparities,

communism came to mean something different on opposite sides of the Atlantic

and Britons and Americans connected the depersonalisation narrativesʼ alien

Others with the communist Other in different ways.

! This is significant in terms of the thesisʼ broader aims because it

demonstrates that, even though Britain and America were politically united in

their official rejection of Soviet ideology, it is still possible to differentiate

between the ways in which attitudes towards communism shaped the range of

readings of 1950s depersonalisation narratives available in these two countries.

The analysis presented above thus indicates that the British reception of the

genre cannot be explained through readings that draw on American

perspectives on the communist threat, thereby demonstrating the existence of

pseudo thought in accounts of these films that globalise their US interpretations.

Moreover, this chapter has also suggested some of the ways in which Britons

were able to negotiate their own national science fiction cinemaʼs stories about

people losing their identities, further delineating the specificity of the British

history of the genreʼs reception.

Notes
1Jellicoe, George. 8 July 1955. Letter addressed to Sir Paul Sinker. National Archives file BW
64/16.
2Chairman of the British Council. 19 December 1956. Letter addressed to A. A. Roschin.
National Archives file BW 64/16.
3 Biskind, Peter. 2001. Seeing is Believing. London: Bloomsbury. p.140.

131
4Booker, M. Keith. 2006. Alternate Americas: Science Fiction Film and American Culture.
Westport, CT: Praeger. p.65.
5 Anon. 19 January 1952. ʻThereʼs a Future for Futuristic Filmsʼ, Picturegoer. p.17.
6 Street, Sarah. 2009. British National Cinema. 2nd edn. Abingdon: Routledge. p.88.
7Kenyon, Amy Maria. 2004. Dreaming Suburbia: Detroit and the Production of Postwar Space
and Culture. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. p.82.
8 Biskind. Seeing is Believing. p.140.
9Whitaker, Reg. 2000. ʻCold War Alchemy: How America, Britain and Canada Transformed
Espionage into Subversionʼ, in Stafford and Jeffreys-Jones (2000: 177-210). pp.189-191.
10Kerr, Sheila. 1992. ʻBritish Cold War Defectors: The Versatile, Durable Toys of
Propagandistsʼ, in Aldrich (1992: 110-140). p.134.
11Plowright, John. 2006. The Routledge Dictionary of Modern British History. Abingdon:
Routledge. p.163.
12 Anon. 22 December 1958. ʻMan Who Stayed in China Returnsʼ, The Times. p.6.
13 MacDonald, Callum. 1996. ʻBritain and the Korean Warʼ, in Brune (1996: 98-116). p.110.
14 Anon. 29 January 1954. ʻMarine Condron Crossesʼ, The Manchester Guardian. p.7.
15 Brantlinger, Patrick. 1988. Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism 1830-1914.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. p.8.
16 Anon. 21 October 1953. ʻAlleged Refusal to Fightʼ, The Times. p.5.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Anon. 19 October 1956. ʻProtest Led By “Communist”ʼ, The Manchester Guardian. p.1.
20 Lowenthal, Richard. 25 March 1951. ʻParadoxes of French Communismʼ, The Observer. p.3.
21 Anon. 23 April 1952. ʻInfiltration of Greek Armyʼ, The Times. p.5.
22 Anon. 24 February 1954a. ʻ“Communism in U.S. Army”ʼ, The Times. p.7; Anon. 24 February
1954b. ʻWoman Communist in the Army?ʼ, The Manchester Guardian. p.14; Anon. 5 July 1954.
ʻ“Infiltration” into U.S. Armyʼ, The Times. p.8.
23Condron, Andrew M., Richard G. Corden and Larance V. Sullivan, (eds) 1955. Thinking
Soldiers: By Men Who Fought in Korea. Peking: New World Press.
24Adamthwaite, Anthony. 1992. ʻOverstretched and Overstrung: Eden, the Foreign Office !and
the Making of Policyʼ, in Nolfo (1992: 19-42). (Originally published in 1988). p.34.
25 Anon. 29 April 1954. ʻNo News of Burgess and Macleanʼ, The Times. p.5.
26 Kerr. ʻBritish Cold War Defectorsʼ. p.124.
27 Anon. 13 February 1956. ʻText of Statement Issued by Burgess and Macleanʼ, The Times. p.7.
28 Anon. 25 February 1956. ʻR.N.L.I. Refuses Fee from Burgessʼ, The Manchester Guardian. p.
4.
29Anon. 14 May 1956. ʻAmerican Security Investigationʼ, The Times. p.10; Anon. 14 July 1956.
ʻBurgessʼs Mother in Moscowʼ, The Times. p.6.

132
30Rusbridger, James. 1991. The Intelligence Game: Illusions and Delusions of International
Espionage. London: I.B. Tauris. p.56.
31 Anon. ʻText of Statement Issued by Burgess and Macleanʼ. p.7.
32 Biskind. Seeing is Believing.. p.140.
33
Jancovich, Mark. 1996. Rational Fears: American Horror in the 1950s. Manchester:
Manchester University Press. p.175.
34 Biskind. Seeing is Believing. p.140.
35ʻThe Universe According to Universalʼ, Dir. David J. Skal. It Came From Outer Space, Dir.
Jack Arnold, Produced by William Alland, 1953. DVD, Universal Studios, 2002.
36 Biskind. Seeing is Believing. p.149.
37Weaver, Tom. 1996. Monsters, Mutants and Heavenly Creatures: Confessions of 14 Classic
Sci-Fi/Horrormeisters!. Baltimore, MD: Midnight Marquee. p.25.
38 Jancovich. Rational Fears. p.174.
39 Ibid. p.175.
40 Ibid. p.176.
41 Anon. 18 August 1955. ʻDefiance of Enemyʼ, The Manchester Guardian. p.1.
42 Anon. ʻAmerican Security Investigationʼ. p.10.
43 Anon. 14 July 1956. ʻBurgessʼs Mother in Moscowʼ, The Times. p.6.
44Hutchings, Peter. 1999. ʻ“Weʼre the Martians Now”: British SF Invasion Fantasies of the
1950s and 1960sʼ, in Hunter (1999b: 33-47). p.38.
45 Ibid.
46 Warren, Bill. 1982. Keep Watching the Skies!, Vol.1. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. p.339.
47 Anon. 22 June 1957. ʻQuatermass IIʼ, Picture Show. p.9.
48 Keeble, Curtis. 1990. ʻThe Historical Perspectiveʼ, in Pravda and Duncan (1990: 17-46). p.35.
49 Childs, David. 2001. Britain Since 1945: A Political History. London: Routledge. p.16.
50 Ibid. p.19.
51 Anon. 25 September 1953. ʻPrisoner Urged to Return Homeʼ, The Manchester Guardian. p.1.
52Schrecker, Ellen. 2002. The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents. 2nd edn.
New York, NY: Palgrave. pp.52-53.
53Defty, Andrew. 2004. Britain, America and Anti-Communist Propaganda: The Information
Research Department. Abingdon: Routledge. p.110.
54Jenks, John. 1988. British Propaganda and News Media in the Cold War. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press. p.47.
55 Anon. 13 March 1948. ʻB.B.C. Sacks 3 “Accused of Communism”ʼ, The Daily Mirror. p.1.
56 Defty. Britain, America and Anti-Communist Propaganda. p.110.
57 Anon. 30 March 1950. ʻLord Vansittart Indicts Communistsʼ, The Manchester Guardian. p.4.
58 Ibid.
133
59 Ibid.
60 Jenks. British Propaganda and News Media in the Cold War. p.47.
61Ivie, Robert L. 1997. ʻDiffusing Cold War Demagoguery: Morrow Versus McCarthy on “See It
Now”ʼ, in Medhurst, Ivie, Wander and Scott (1997: 81-102). p.81.
62Brinson, Susan L. 2004. The Red Scare, Politics, and the Federal Communications
Commission, 1941-1960. Westport, CT: Praeger.
63 Anon. 19 January 1951. ʻReport on BBC Criticisedʼ, The Manchester Guardian. p.4.
64Crisell, Andrew. 1997. An Introductory History of British Broadcasting. London: Routledge. p.
28.
65 Anon. 5 May 1955. ʻCommunists and BBCʼ, The Manchester Guardian. p.8.
66 Defty. Britain, America and Anti-Communist Propaganda. p.104.
67 Weaver. Monsters, Mutants and Heavenly Creatures. p.25.
68Stacey, Jackie. 1994. Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship. London:
Routledge. p.130.
69 Pedelty, Donovan. 18 July 1953. ʻHe Came from Outer Spaceʼ, Picturegoer. p.18.
70 Lane, Henry. 10 October 1953. ʻOut of Space into Depthʼ, Picturegoer. p.18.
71
Hutchings, Peter. 1993. Hammer and Beyond: The British Horror Film. Manchester:
Manchester University Press pp.49-50.
72 Idib. p.49-50.
73 Pollitt, Harry. 27 January 1950. ʻA Community Broadcastʼ, The Times. p.5.
74 Childs. Britain Since 1945. p.16.
75
See Booker. Alternate Americas. p.65; Gianos, Phillip L. 1998. Politics and Politicians in
American Film. Westport, CT: Praeger. p.140.
76 Kenyon. Dreaming Suburbia. p.82.

134
 Chapter Three: Immigration and the Other in 1950s Science Fiction

Cinemaʼs Alien Encounter Narratives

! Introduction

! Historians such as Stephen J. Lee have noted that the 1950s saw the

first wave of large scale immigration into Britain in response to the labour

shortages that followed World War II.1 In describing this immigration, the British

press often relied on language mined from the contemporary science fiction

cinema boom. The Manchester Guardian published articles about the towns

and cities that had ʻborne the brunt of the invasionʼ and ʻthe social effects of

their invasionʼ.2 Cyril Osborne, MP for Louth, similarly warned against a ʻWest

Indian and West African invasionʼ.3 The Times wrote of calls for legislation to

deport Commonwealth immigrants ʻsimilar to that used for dealing with aliensʼ

and printed letters about the ʻtreatment of aliensʼ.4 The Daily Mirror drew on the

genreʼs pulp tradition when describing ʻthe coloured evil menʼ, perhaps recalling

the previous yearʼs Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) or the earlier feature

Superman and the Mole Men, the alternative title for Superman and the Strange

People (1952).5 Science fiction metaphors became one way in which concerns

about immigration were expressed in 1950s Britain, projecting the alien Others

of the cinema screen onto the immigrant Others who began to settle in the

nationʼs towns and cities.

! The use of the language of science fiction in such contexts relied on the

perception that immigrants were essentially different from the British population

whose territory they were seen to ʻinvadeʼ. This outlook was made possible in

1950s Britain by what Robert Miles, drawing on the work of Franz Fanon and

Michael Banton, has termed the ʻracialisationʼ of immigrant communities.6 Milesʼ

135
term refers to the ʻhistorical process of reifying the idea of “race”, of conceiving

it as a real objectʼ.7 It describes the apportioning of ʻsocial significanceʼ to skin

colour, thereby allowing the concept of race to emerge in the public

consciousness.8 Racialisation has gained significant currency amongst

historians and sociologists of 1950s Britain and has been used by scholars

such as Farzana Shain and Huw Thomas to make sense of various aspects of

the decade.9 Of course, it was not a process that began in or was unique to the

1950s and Richard Dyer has identified similar phenomena dating back to the

eighteenth century.10 However, the 1950s was a key decade for the

development of the racialisation process because it saw the widespread

settlement of people from across the world within Britainʼs borders for the first

time. This was the decade in which race emerged as a pressing matter in British

domestic politics.

! One of the effects of the racialisation process was to reconstruct 1950s

immigration in public debate as a black invasion which threatened to pollute

what one senior political figure described in correspondence with Prime Minister

Anthony Eden as ʻthe racial character of the English peopleʼ.11 Because the

racialisation process made it possible to categorise people according to their

race, it enabled Britons to imagine immigrants as a group of racial Others,

distinct from the supposedly uniformly white host population. This perception

underpins the use of terms such as ʻinvasionʼ or ʻalienʼ in the 1950s newspaper

reports quoted above, suggesting that the narratives and ideas associated with

1950s science fiction films were of particular relevance to a British audience

swept up in the racialisation process and seeing the first waves of mass

immigration into the country. Indeed, when Cyril Osborne MP called for

ʻcourageous actionʼ to repel this perceived invasion, it came in the form of

136
violence, as in so many of the decadeʼs science fiction films, during the

Nottingham and Notting Hill race riots of 1958.12 From the perceived threat of a

black invasion by the so-called aliens arriving on Britainʼs shores to the violent

action that was taken in response, it is possible to see the history of race

relations in 1950s Britain underpinned by the language and logic of the eraʼs

science fiction cinema.

! As the language of science fiction was one means by which Britons

negotiated issues of race and immigration, the same debates helped to shape

the British reception of the eraʼs genre cinema. In this regard, films in which

people encounter aliens provide a fruitful area of enquiry since they dramatise

the encounter between the Self and the Other. A number of such films were

discussed in the previous chapter, since the depersonalisation narratives often

see aliens arriving on Earth and coming into contact with the locals, even if this

is done by proxy through possessed human bodies. However, whereas those

films were useful in my exploration of the relationship between the communist

and the alien because of their depersonalisation theme, here a broader range of

films that feature a number of different types of alien encounter can be

considered. The Trollenberg Terror (1958), this chapterʼs first case study film,

frames its contact between humans and aliens as an invasion, depicting

creatures from outer space coming to Earth to attack humanity. The second film

that I discuss, It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958), is slightly different in

that its alien is not part of a planetary invasion, but a monstrous stowaway on a

spaceship populated by human astronauts. Despite these differences, both

films stage an encounter with an alien Other and so were capable of being

understood through 1950s British debates about race and immigration.

137
! This chapter argues that the key concepts of the 1950s alien encounter

narratives, such as Otherness, physical difference and invasion, took on

particular meanings in relation to the specific nature of British debates about

race and immigration. However, the public understanding of those issues was

not consistent during the 1950s. Its shape and focus shifted as the years

passed, immigration increased and the racialisation process evolved. In order to

avoid totalising these debates by attempting to account for the era as a whole,

this chapter focuses on one particular moment in the history of 1950s British

race relations, namely the 1958 race riots. The riots have been chosen since

they represent a time when race became a prominent topic on Britain's public

agenda and hence when it might have been at the forefront of the British

cinema-goerʼs mind. This chapter thus describes some of the contradictory

attitudes towards race that were expressed in the aftermath of the rioting and

traces their consequences for contemporary readings of the two alien encounter

narratives in question, The Trollenberg Terror and It! The Terror from Beyond

Space, both of which were released in the weeks that followed the violence.

! The first section of the chapter presents evidence that some British

people saw in the riots confirmation that different races could not peacefully

coexist and that the racial Self and Other were incompatible. This attitude is

traced primarily through media reports of relevant events and letters from the

public, published in Britainʼs newspapers, both of which suggest that certain

corners of British society remained hostile to immigration and immigrants even

after the violence of 1958. The second section then uses this evidence to

suggest that the threatening alien Others of science fictionʼs alien encounter

films were able to mirror the threatening racial Others that Britainʼs immigrant

138
population was perceived to be, presenting readings of both It! and Trollenberg

to support its argument.

! The second half of the chapter suggests a different way of approaching

these films by discussing the anti-racist backlash against the violence

perpetrated by white Britons during the 1958 riots. This strand of public debate,

again traced through letters and articles in Britainʼs newspapers, attempted to

use the riots to discourage racist attitudes. The place occupied by both It! and

Trollenberg in post-riot Britain is reassessed in light of this facet of public

debate. Both films contain sequences in which the Otherness of the alien is

contested as it begins to display a likeness to the human Self. This section

traces parallels between the questioning of the status of the alien Other and the

anti-racist response to the 1958 riots, suggesting the potential of It! and

Trollenberg to challenge as well as to reaffirm the perception of racialised

immigrants as Others.

! This chapter advances the aims of the thesis by suggesting that the

British reception of 1950s science fictionʼs alien encounter narratives was

inflected by the specific nature of debates about race and immigration that

emerged in Britain after the riots, a significant national event, and so was

unique to Britain. It is not possible to demonstrate this through a direct

comparison between the British readings presented here and equivalent

American interpretations because race and immigration have not yet been a

significant focus of debates about the meaning of these films in the United

States.13 Film historians have not yet extensively explored the role played by

race and immigration in structuring the responses of American audiences to

1950s science fiction films, but this chapter shows that, should such an analysis

be produced, it could not take the same shape as that presented here since the

139
readings that I describe below are derived from specifically British concerns

about race and immigration. Consequently, this chapter shows that the alien

Other of 1950s science fiction films was not simply reinterpreted in Britain in

light a domestic understanding of issues that were significant in America, such

as communist infiltration, but was rather reframed through debates that were

important in Britain itself. As a result, the globalisation of American readings of

1950s science fiction cinema is again shown to be incapable of explaining the

British reception of the genre.

! Characterising Public Debate: Immigration Anxieties in 1950s Britain

! In November 1955, Secretary of the Cabinet Norman Brook informed

Prime Minister Anthony Eden that ʻcolonial immigration is not yet a matter of

general public concernʼ.14 Written less than three years before the notorious

Notting Hill and Nottingham race riots, Brookʼs letter now appears at odds with

recent histories of the period that have rendered visible the underlying racism of

1950s Britain. Charles More, for example, has noted the nationʼs contradictory

attitude towards race during this era, arguing that although ʻmany people

deplored the strict segregation which the US military enforced among its troops

in Britain during the war...many were also concerned at interracial sexual

liaisonsʼ.15 Laura Penketh has taken a less cautious approach, arguing that ʻin

the 1940s and 1950s Britain was a hostile, unwelcoming environment steeped

in the ideology of racial superiorityʼ.16 Though they disagree on the explicitness

of the racial prejudice on display during the 1950s, these scholars are typical of

a number of historians of this period who have formed a loose consensus

behind the idea that British society was inherently racist.

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! Annie Phizacklea and Robert Miles have built on this consensus by

examining the ways in which ʻblack migrant workersʼ increasingly found ʻsocial

significanceʼ apportioned ʻto their physical appearance, a significance which

[led] to their being categorised as a “race”ʼ.17 As noted above, Miles has termed

this phenomena ʻracialisationʼ.18 Miles and Rudy Torres have argued that the

origins of this process can be traced to the early years of the 1950s when ʻthe

“race problem” was spatially located beyond Britainʼs borders in its Empire,

particularly in certain colonies, notably South Africaʼ.19 As Benjamin Bowling

indicates, this was a period when people who were not white largely only

entered the British public consciousness as a presence ʻin the colonies, rather

than in Britain itselfʼ.20 Perhaps because of the great distances between these

colonies and the metropole, Bowling claims that ʻduring the early 1950s British

people did not identify black people as a threatʼ.21 Race was predominantly

seen as a thing of the Empire, not a domestic and immediate concern to people

residing in Britain itself. However, as post-war labour shortages in Britain

brought increasing numbers of colonial and Commonwealth subjects to its

shores, the presumption that Britain was what Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has called

a ʻhomogeneous white countryʼ evaporated and debates about race began to

shift their focus from the colonies to the parent state.22

! The initial 492 Jamaican passengers who arrived in Tilbury aboard the

Empire Windrush in June 1948, the first significantly sized cohort of West Indian

economic migrants to arrive in Britain in the post-war years, were followed in

September by a further 108.23 As the years passed, the figures for annual

arrivals increased. According to Frank Field and Patricia Haikin, ʻby 1951 it was

estimated that about 1,750 [immigrants from the West Indies] arrived in one

year; in 1952 and 1953 over 3,000; and in 1954 between 10,000 and 11,000ʼ.24

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A similar picture was emerging from other Commonwealth and colonial

territories. Rashmi Desai has shown that, in 1955 alone, 10,700 Indians and

Pakistanis lived in Britain, rising to 17,300 in 1957 and 55,000 in 1958.25 In

1955 the net intake of non-white immigrants from the Commonwealth was

42,700, rising to a peak of 46,850 in 1956.26 Prime Minister Harold Macmillan

was informed in July 1957 that ʻthe total number of West Indians in this country

continues to increaseʼ and although ʻthe flow of immigration [from the West

Indies] has displayed a continuous and striking fall since last

summer...immigration from India and Pakistan...shows no signs of abatingʼ.27 In

1958 a letter from an advisor informed him that ʻWest Indian immigration

remains higher than last yearʼ with ʻa monthly influx into this country of some

3,000 coloured immigrantsʼ.28 As these figures demonstrate, the 1950s saw the

demographic makeup of Britain undergo a radical change as the number of

non-white immigrants increased markedly in a very short space of time.

! Issues of race often distorted debates about immigration in Britainʼs

newspapers during this period.29 In 1953, for example, Colin Jordan of

Leamington Spa wrote to The Observer:

I venture to suggest that the most satisfactory and humane way to tackle the colour
problem is to prevent further coloured immigration into Britain and to promote the
repatriation of coloured folk over here. I submit that whatever human discomfort
and inconvenience this might involve, it would be small in comparison with the
eventual total of suffering, discord and disorder which will result from continued
immigration and settlement. It is difficult indeed to see any rhyme or reason for
allowing this coloured influx into this essentially white manʼs country. 30

Jordan refers to a ʻcolour problemʼ, ʻcoloured folkʼ and a ʻcoloured influxʼ,

juxtaposing these ideas against the notion of Britain as a ʻwhite manʼs

countryʼ.31 For Jordan, the issue was evidently not immigration per se, but

rather the arrival of non-white people in Britain.32 Similarly, when Kenneth Little

of the Department of Social Anthropology at Edinburgh University wrote to The

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Manchester Guardian in 1954 about ʻa fairly extensive series of studies of

Colonial immigration into Britainʼ, he rapidly moved from discussing ʻWest

Indian immigrationʼ and ʻColonial students in Londonʼ to ʻNegro and Moslem

groupsʼ, ʻthe Coloured populationʼ and ʻthe Coloured “middle classes”ʼ, shifting

his focus from national origins to race.33 For many, Norman Brookʼs assessment

of colonial immigration as a ʻlong-term threat to the racial character of the

English peopleʼ might have seemed accurate.34 In each of these examples the

debate about colonial immigration became a means of expressing concerns

about the increasing presence of non-white people in Britain. The perception

that race was only an issue in the colonies and not in Britain itself was clearly

subsiding. As Benjamin Bowling put it, ʻcolonial racism was transformed into

indigenous racismʼ and, in Milesʼ terms, race became ʻa real objectʼ in Britain.35

As a result it was now possible for the newspaper accounts quoted in the

introduction to this chapter to frame immigration in terms of a national white Self

and an invading racial Other.

! As this process of racialisation took hold, the belief that the perceived

black invasion was dangerous to an imagined white national Self strengthened.

Concerns about overpopulation and the supposed dislocation of white, working

class communities by immigrants of different cultural and racial heritages are

now familiar features of 21st century British debates about immigration, but

similar anxieties were also present in the late 1950s, albeit on a more localised

scale. Fears about population pressure resulting from immigration were not

present nationwide, but they were certainly felt in places where immigrant

communities developed quickly and densely, as in ʻLondon, the industrial

Midlands, parts of the north west and parts of Yorkshireʼ.36 This was seen to put

pressure on the local job market in these locations. In October 1954, for

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example, The Daily Mirror reported that ʻ17,000 dockers were on strikeʼ in

London as a result of ʻallegations...that the Dock Labour Scheme had been

infringed by coloured labour being brought inʼ.37 The newspaper reported

accusations that ʻthe coloured men - Indians and Goanese - had handled

baggage and mail from the linersʼ.38 Similar concerns were expressed in terms

of housing. As one headline in The Manchester Guardian announced, locals

had dubbed an area of London ʻbrown townʼ, a reference to the skin colour of

the new immigrant community, a pun on the nearby White City region and a

comment on the perceived drop in the quality of life in the district.39 According to

The Manchester Guardianʼs summary of a conversation with a local resident of

this area, the public ʻought to expect overcrowding and resentmentʼ as a result

of attempts to ʻpack another three or four thousand people...most of them men

and all of them colouredʼ into an already deprived region.40 It is clear from this

emphasis on skin colour that it was not solely the presence of these people, but

also their race and its supposed impact on the region that caused concern. The

Daily Mirror legitimised such claims in 1955 by arguing that, while racial

prejudice had a hand in fanning tensions, there was ʻa real grievance to sustain

itʼ.41 Even Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was made aware of the growing

perception that immigrants from Africa and the West Indies were dominating

local services to the detriment of white residents. An advisor wrote to him in July

1957 to warn that even the ʻreduced rate of immigrationʼ that Britain was seeing

at the time was ʻcapable of giving rise to problems, particularly where it

produces “black” pockets of population who monopolise housing

accommodationʼ.42 These commentators each saw the presence of

communities of people who were not white as a negative force in an area,

144
changing the nature of the place and making it less habitable for white

residents.

! In late August and early September 1958, the racial tensions that had

underpinned the decade finally came to the fore through riots on the streets of

two British cities. On 23rd August, Nottingham saw running battles between

groups of black and white men involving upwards of a thousand people. A

number were taken into hospital as a result of injuries from weapons such as

knives and bottles. The rioting in Nottingham only lasted for one night, with

intermittent low level violence in the two weeks that followed, but it was soon

repeated elsewhere. In Notting Hill, London, on the evening of 30th August, a

mob of between three and four hundred white people attacked the houses of

West Indian immigrants. Similar disturbances recurred daily for a week, during

which time local immigrants began to carry weapons for protection. Police

intervention eventually brought the violence under control, but seventy-two

white people and thirty-six black people were charged with crimes ranging from

grievous bodily harm to possessing offensive weapons. It was the worst race

rioting that Britain had ever seen and is still the most serious to date.

! A significant portion of the coverage of these events in Britainʼs

newspapers served to re-inscribe the notion that colonial immigration and racial

diversity were threats to Britainʼs supposedly homogenous white society and to

suggest that different races could not peacefully coexist. On 3rd September,

during the Notting Hill riots, The Daily Mirror used the inflammatory headline

ʻBlack v Whiteʼ to introduce a story, mentioned above, about ʻthe coloured evil

menʼ and the need for ʻcourageous actionʼ by white people to resist their

presence in Britain, positioning black and white people as irreconcilable

adversaries.43 Similarly, on 28th August, The Times reported that a group of

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Conservative MPs saw ʻin the Nottingham fight between coloured and white

people on Saturday night a red light of further troubles to comeʼ.44 The Times

suggested that these politicians ʻintend to renew demand for controls to be

placed on immigration from the Commonwealth and coloniesʼ.45 That a number

of MPs saw controlling immigration rather than addressing prejudice as the way

to prevent further trouble suggests that they either blamed colonial immigrants

for the violence or saw racial diversity itself as problematic. Cyril Osborne MP

was even quoted in The Times arguing that by permitting colonial immigration

ʻwe are sowing the seeds of another “Little Rock”ʼ, referring to an incident in the

United States in which National Guard troops had to be called in to force racial

integration on a resistant school in Arkansas.46 Each of these examples is

typical of a strand of public debate that emerged in the aftermath of the racist

violence of 1958 which claimed the riots as conclusive evidence that people of

different races could not peacefully coexist.

! Indeed, the race riots did little to dispel the belief held by many in 1950s

Britain that a black presence made a community a more difficult place for white

people to live. Claims that black immigrants lived in overcrowded and

unsanitary conditions, often fuelled by suspicions that such arrangements would

not be tolerated by the police if the tenants were white, appear to have been as

common after the riots as before. As a Home Office report of a meeting held by

the Home Secretary in September 1958 to discuss what it terms the ʻracial

disturbancesʼ in Notting Hill noted:

Local white residents felt that the coloured immigrants reduced the amenities of the
neighbourhood and, in particular, that they lived in conditions which the local and
public authorities would not tolerate for white people. The houses in which coloured
people lived were notoriously overcrowded and there was resentment at the way in
which coloured landlords attempted to get rid of white tenants...Much hostility was
caused by coloured men...known to be living on the immoral earnings of white
prostitutes.47

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These complaints, familiar in the national press before the 1958 race riots, did

not die down in the weeks and months that followed the disturbances. They

were voiced, for example, by Noel B. W. Thompson in 1959 in a letter to The

Manchester Guardian, stressing his belief that immigrants would buy property

and use ʻcoercive methods to remove existing tenants and subsequently grossly

overcrowd the houses with tenants of their own colourʼ.48 Douglas Shearn, a

police sergeant in Notting Hill, claimed after the riots that the cause for the

trouble had been ʻthe housing situation there, plus white women associating

with coloured men in the areaʼ.49 As Gerry Holloway has noted, similar anxieties

about the pressures exerted on Britain by immigration were also expressed

through white ʻresentment of immigrant workers who were seen to be taking

jobs from indigenous communitiesʼ.50 In some corners of public debate, white

people were still being framed as the victims of black immigrant communities

and their supposed impact on the quality of life in an area even after the riots.

For some white people, the perceived black invasion of their communities had

squeezed local resources and caused their quality of life to drop.

! As the 1950s progressed, discussions of race transferred their focus

from Britainʼs colonies to Britain itself. This created the discursive conditions

through which the racialisation process could produce two distinct categories,

the white national Self and the immigrant racial Other. Once this was done,

immigration could be framed as the invasion of an imaginary white Britain by

non-white foreigners. In the period that followed the 1958 riots, this system of

thought nurtured a strand of public debate, fostered in the pre-riot years, that

saw black integration as a danger which threatened the prosperity of local,

white communities. In the section that follows, this view of race and immigration

in 1950s Britain will be used to discuss two science fiction films that were

147
released in the aftermath of the riots, reframing their alien encounters through

the perception of immigration as a form of racialised invasion.

! Reading 1950s Alien Encounter Narratives: The Racialised Immigrant

and the Alien Other

! It! The Terror from Beyond Space is an American film that, according to

the London Pavilion listings in The Manchester Guardian, was screened in

Britain from at least 4th October 1958, a few short weeks after the riots.51 It tells

the story of a crew of astronauts, seven men and two women, who visit Mars to

rescue Colonel Edward Carruthers, the sole survivor of a previous mission, only

to face the prospect of a four month return journey to Earth trapped in their ship

with a bloodsucking alien stowaway. This is certainly not a plot that deliberately

engages with debates about race and immigration and indeed authors such as

Cyndy Hendershot, John L. Flynn and J. Gordon Melton have found in it more

obvious allusions to vampire mythology.52 However, vampires have often been

been understood as a means of addressing concerns about race.53 It!ʼs

presentation of an alien encounter certainly stood the potential of being

interpreted in this way given the filmʼs release into the particularly charged

environment of early October 1958 in Britain. In that context, where terms such

as ʻinvasionʼ and ʻalienʼ had become associated with immigration and race,

there are certain aspects of the film that might have found their interpretation

inflected by these debates.

! It! is a film that repeatedly underscores the diametric opposition between

its human and alien characters. Dana Polan has argued that the Martian beast

represents ʻcomplete and irrevocable difference from everything that the film

upholds as the decent everyday worldʼ.54 Neil Badmington has similarly argued

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that the ʻbinary opposition between the human and the inhumanʼ allows ʻthe

sudden presence of the alien [to create] a coherent sense of the human...If

there is an “It”, there must be something that is not an “It”, and this, of course, is

“Us”ʼ.55 This contrast can be observed not only in the filmʼs characters, but also

in its presentation of different locations. For example, It! opens with a wide

angle shot of the expansive, barren Martian horizon, in the centre of which lies

the metallic wreckage of Carruthersʼ first spacecraft. A man-made piece of

technology in the middle of the natural, rocky landscape, the spaceship is

clearly out of place. When we see inside the rescue missionʼs craft, its

enclosed, artificial, metallic sets also contrast with the opening shot of the vast

wilderness of the Martian surface. Just as Mark Jancovich notes that It Came

from Outer Space (1953) contrasts its desert and town locations, as discussed

in the previous chapter, It!ʼs mise-en-scène draws clear distinctions between

human and alien spaces, juxtaposing the populated, manufactured craft with

the deserted, natural landscape.56

! The opposition between human and non-human allows It! to stage its

alien encounter story as a type of atypical invasion narrative. As the film

progresses, the creature gradually gains control of the spaceshipʼs decks,

forcing the humans out of their own territory and into an increasingly confined

space. The beastʼs assault can thus be read as an invasion of a small outpost

of humanity amongst the stars by an alien Other, removing the crew from their

familiar spaces and rendering them inhospitable. Just as some Britons were

becoming increasingly concerned about the displacement of white communities

by black immigrants and the resultant pressure on resources, It! arrived in

cinemas, warning of the dire consequences of the arrival of an alien Other who

squeezed the human crew out of their known surroundings and took possession

149
of one of their most limited resources, space. Towards the end of the film the

astronauts even worry that the beast has breathed too much of their oxygen. As

these similarities suggest, the filmʼs story mirrors the narrative of deprivation

and dislocation that some white communities constructed for themselves during

this period when faced with the arrival of black immigrants.

! The perceived similarity between the alien creature and Britainʼs colonial

immigrants is further heightened by the fact that, in a parallel of the racialisation

process that took place in 1950s Britain, the Martian comes to be identified by

its black skin, often in opposition to the human crewʼs whiteness. This is

demonstrated during a sequence where the creature emerges from ventilation

pipes into the lower decks of the spaceship. The alien is surprised to discover

that the room has been rigged with explosives by the humans, who listen in

from the floor above. As the beast is caught up in these blasts its body is

obscured by thick smoke. Poorly lit within this haze, the alienʼs features become

blurred and indistinguishable. Only its vaguely human shape and the blackness

of its skin, accentuated by the dark latex of its costume and the monochrome

cinematography, are identifiable. Echoing earlier scenes in which the alien only

appears as an inky silhouette projected against the shipʼs walls, the lighting,

costume, special effects and film stock used to capture this sequence, which is

typical of the presentation of the beast throughout much of the film, all culminate

to ensure that its predominant feature is the blackness of its skin.

! Moreover, the film invites its audience to compare the beastʼs black skin

with the white skin of its human characters, further suggesting that Britons might

have understood the creature as a racialised subject parallel to the countryʼs

newly arrived immigrants. Two shots of the beast amidst the explosive traps in

the lower decks, by now a hazy whirl of smoke, shadow and black latex,

150
bookend a long, slow panning shot of the well-lit, crisply photographed and

uniformly white faces of the crew. The lighting even glistens on several of their

sweaty faces, drawing further attention to their pale skin. The camera spends a

full ten seconds lingering on this pan, giving the audience ample time in which

to contrast the whiteness of humanity as it exists on the ship with the black

beast that they have just witnessed rampaging below. The film then cuts back to

the lower deck, replacing the white faces of the crew with the black head of the

beast, accentuated by deep shadows. This sudden cut, in which the white

human face is juxtaposed with the black alien mask, construes the beastʼs

blackness as a racial counterweight to the crewʼs whiteness. This intersection of

images thus mirrors the racialisation process of 1950s Britain, ensuring that the

creature is not merely seen to have black skin, but to be black in contrast to the

white characters. In this sense, the black latex of the creatureʼs outfit becomes

a racial signifier through its juxtaposition with white flesh.

# In constructing a dualism between white humans and black beasts, this

reading of It! draws on a tradition of fantastical films that have racialised their

monsters. Mark Jancovich has noted that Creature from the Black Lagoon

(1954), for example, could be understood as a commentary on ʻthe tyranny of

WASP culture over other ethnic and racial groups, particularly through the filmʼs

concern with colonisationʼ.57 Although less obvious in their allusions to issues of

cultural imperialism, the filmʼs sequel, Revenge of the Creature (1955), and

Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957) could also have been read in this way. As I

discuss later in the chapter, the precedent for this use of monsters as signifiers

of race was set at least as far back as the 1930s when, for James A. Snead,

King Kong (1933) emerged as ʻa noteworthy...instance of “the coded black”ʼ in

which ʻthe carrier of blackness is not a human being, but an apeʼ.58 In this

151
sense, It!ʻs racialised monster was another manifestation of a convention that

had been a part of fantasy and science fiction cinema for some time and which

was also present in other contemporary genre films.

! However, by the 1950s, when science fiction films such as It! and Black

Lagoon presented monstrous Others as racialised figures, the British contexts

in which these films were received might have made such readings even more

relevant, especially given the post-riot suggestion, underscored by the Daily

Mirror headline ʻBlack v Whiteʼ, that black immigrants were engaged in an

invasion of Britain.59 Indeed, contemporary British film magazines sometimes

used the language of race to discuss the creatures of 1950s science fictionʼs

alien encounter films. In November 1958, for example, two months after the

riots and one month after the release of It!, Picturegoer talked about the genreʼs

ʻmonsters as a raceʼ and the characteristics that could be apportioned to

them.60 In this context, the titular creature of It! may well have appeared as the

racialised invader of a white crewʼs spacecraft, analogous with the racialised

colonial immigrants that many believed were staging an invasion of a ʻwhite

manʼs countryʼ.61

! It! was not the only science fiction film released in Britain in late 1958 that

could have found its interpretation shaped by events on the streets of London

and Nottingham. The Trollenberg Terror, a British film adapted from an

Associated Television serial of the same name that was broadcast between

1956 and 1957, began screening in Britain on 7th October 1958, just one month

after the riots. Trollenberg tells the story of two British sisters on a train bound

for Geneva when the younger sibling, Anne Pilgrim, feels a sudden, inexplicable

urge to alight in Trollenberg, a peaceful town at the foot of a Swiss mountain.

Anne and her sister, a clairvoyant double act from London, are taken to a hotel

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by Alan Brooks, an American scientist who shared their train carriage and who

is in Trollenberg to visit an old friend, Professor Crevett, in his observatory on

the slopes of the mountain. While the English women rest and recuperate,

Brooks tours Crevettʼs facility and is warned about mysterious, radioactive

clouds that hover over the mountain. It soon transpires that the clouds have

been hiding alien invaders who descend to Earth. These gigantic eyeballs with

long, thin tentacles attack a small girl and force the population of the town,

including Brooks and the two Pilgrim sisters, to retreat up the mountain to

Crevettʼs observatory. A siege begins with the beasts buffeting the building while

the humans throw petrol bombs at them. The aliens soon break open the wall of

the room where Anne is resting and attempt to reach her with their tentacles.

This attack is cut short by the efforts of the humans inside the facility and the

firebombing of the observatory by a military jet. The creatures burn alive on the

slopes of the mountain and the humans emerge from their shelter unscathed.

! The poster used to advertise this film in Britain featured a tentacled eye

encircling a young, smartly dressed woman, probably intended to be Anne, in its

appendages. Anne does become a focal point of the aliensʼ mission, with

several attempts to kidnap her being launched, but the film never explores what

motivates these attacks. One explanation of the alienʼs desire for Anne can be

suggested by locating this poster in the broader context of 1950s science fiction

cinema advertising. Similar images of helpless women in the grip of dangerous

beasts accompanied many alien encounter films during this period. They were

used to promote The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Phantom from Space

(1953), Invaders from Mars (1954), Robot Monster (1954), Creature from the

Black Lagoon, Tobor the Great (1954), The Day the World Ended (1956), The

Phantom from 10,000 Leagues (1956), Revenge of the Creature, Fire Maidens

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from Outer Space (1956), Forbidden Planet (1956), It Conquered the World

(1956), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), Attack of the Crab Monsters,

Invasion of the Saucer Men, The Monster that Challenged the World (1957),

The Colossus of New York (1958), The Woman Eater (1958), Satanʼs Satellites

(1959), Return of the Fly (1959) and numerous others besides. These images

became so strongly associated with the genre that articles on alien encounter

films in Britainʼs cinema magazines sometimes made reference to them. For

example, an article in Picturegoer, knowingly entitled ʻThe Case of the

Frightened Ladiesʼ, described how actress ʻMala Powers seems just a shade

apprehensive in the grasp ofʼ the robotic man from The Colossus of New York,

drawing attention to the type of imagery that posters had taught audiences to

anticipate in the eraʼs science fiction films.62 As this demonstrates, the repeated

depiction of a helpless woman in a monsterʼs hand across so many different

posters, regardless of whether the scene that it depicted actually appeared in

the film in question or not, ensured that such imagery became part of the

iconography associated with the genre during the 1950s.

! The imagery itself draws on a tradition of depicting white women at the

mercy of terrifying beasts in science fiction and fantasy cinema that has been

decried for its racist overtones. Alongside the racialised monsters discussed

earlier in this chapter, these posters can also trace a lineage back to King Kong,

a film which, as Joshua David Bellin notes, used its creature to articulate the

perceived ʻthreat of black male sexual predationʼ, particularly through the apeʼs

curiosity about Ann Darrow, the white woman who visits his island.63 Similarly,

Cynthia Erb has situated Kong within ʻthe overall fetishization of hands,

touching, and body contact repeatedly featured in jungle filmsʼ which underlines

ʻthe genreʼs overall investment in images of contact, usually between

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representatives of “civilization” and “nature,” or Western and non-Westernʼ.64

For these scholars, Kong can be understood as an embodiment of 1930s fears

of black male sexuality. In this sense, Kong is comparable to what Donald Bogle

has called the ʻpure black buckʼ.65 Bogle describes this black stereotype in

Hollywood cinema as ʻover-sexed and savage, violent and frenzied as they lust

for white fleshʼ, suggesting that it ʻarticulated the great white fear that every

black man longs for a white womanʼ.66 The black buckʼs sexual fixation on white

skin underpins both Bellinʼs reading of Kongʼs pursuit of a white woman and

Erbʼs use of him as an example of the sexualised touch between western and

non-western subjects.67 A number of the posters used to advertise this film were

also informed by this sexualised stereotype, featuring Kong, a literal black

beast, atop the Empire State Building with a distressed, provocatively posed

and white-skinned Darrow in his hand. The sheer popularity of Kong and its

privileged position in the genreʼs canon suggest that it is to this image that many

1950s science fiction cinema posters made reference when depicting a white

woman in the grasp of a monstrous creature, perhaps hoping to recapture some

of the earlier filmʼs financial success. However, in recreating this image these

posters also recreated its race politics, invoking the figure of the black buck and

his sexual fetishisation of white skin by reviving the practice of depicting

monstrous beasts in pursuit of white women.

! The British poster used to advertise The Trollenberg Terror, described

above, certainly makes use of this type of racially inflected imagery, but that is

not the only way in which the filmʼs aliens can be understood in relation to the

black buck stereotypeʼs desire for white flesh. The creatures also suggest their

sexual predation through their appearance. They are gigantic eyes with long,

phallic tentacles, suggesting both voyeurism and sexual aggression. From

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certain angles their eyeball bodies resemble gigantic testicles, their tentacles

looking more phallic still in this context. Furthermore, as the creatures climb the

mountain in pursuit of Anne they make a rhythmic, gasping, grunting noise that

carries obvious sexual connotations. As such, when the creatures eventually

break through the wall of the mountain observatory room where Anne is

sleeping and watch her through the hole in the wall, slowly extending their

phallic appendages towards her, there is a strong implication that their desire for

her is sexually motivated.68

! The aliens of Trollenberg are monstrous Others who, in the absence of

any clear motivation for their attacks, appear to have a sexual desire for Anne, a

white woman. This indicates that they, too, might have been recognised by

British viewers, who were already immersed in debates about race when this

film was released, as part of Kongʼs legacy of using monsters to suggest the

black buck stereotype. There is certainly some evidence to suggest that the

links between many 1950s science fiction films and Kong were understood by

British film magazines. In reviewing The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), for

example, Picturegoer deemed it the ʻlatest runner from the King Kong monster

stableʼ.69 A few weeks earlier this publication had printed a mock interview with

the titular beast of 20,000 Fathoms. When asked why his film was not in 3D, a

technology that was in vogue at the time, the creature responded:

[Monsters] have always been successful, even in flat films. Look at King Kong. He
did well enough in 1933, didnʼt he? And when R-K-O-Radio dug him up again just
recently he earned another 2,500,000 dollars. Mighty Joe Young [1949] was
successful, too. So was The Thing From Another World [1951]. 70

This interview frames both 20,000 Fathoms and The Thing as successors to

Kong, a claim first made in Picturegoer the previous year when it was claimed

that ʻThe Thing sounds remarkably like King Kongʼ.71 Comments such as these

encourage an expectation that other 1950s science fiction films, such as

156
Trollenberg, will resemble Kong and consequently suggest that the same

reading strategies, and the same racial stereotypes, can be used in making

sense of them.

! Like It!ʼs creature, Trollenbergʼs aliens also caused their human prey to

abandon their homes and huddle in overcrowded and unfamiliar territory, even if

in the latter film the shelter was a mountaintop observatory rather than a

spaceshipʼs upper decks. This similarity suggests that the eyeball monstersʼ

invasion was also available for interpretation as a metaphor for the so-called

black invasion that immigration had been framed as in public debate. In this

way, both of these films could be understood as fantasies of white resistance to

invasions that were coded as black. These black invasions appear to parallel

colonial immigration, with resistance being framed as heroic and necessary,

much like the ʻcourageous actionʼ that Cyril Osborne had suggested was

required to stop the arrival of more economic migrants in Britain.72

! Characterising Public Debate: Post-Riot Optimism

! As discussed above, much of the media response to the 1958 race riots

presented mass immigration as the root cause of the violence because it

brought supposedly incompatible racial groups together in one country.

However, this was not the only way in which these events were understood in

late 1958. Wendy Webster has recently argued that the similarity between the

riots and racial violence and prejudice in the United States and South Africa

ʻthreatened Britainʼs self-representation as a liberal and tolerant nationʼ.73

Perhaps in part a response to this threat to Britainʼs self-image, a significant

strand of public debate emerged in the post-riot weeks that expressed outrage

at the violence and suggested that it was alien to British society. A British Pathé

157
newsreel, for example, reported the Notting Hill violence as ʻsomething new and

ugly [that] raises its head in Britainʼ.74 The report goes on to claim that ʻopinions

differ about Britainʼs racial problems, but the mentality which tries to solve them

with coshes and broken railings has no place in the British way of life. This

violence is evil and the law and public opinion must stamp it outʼ.75 Similarly,

The Times reported that Eric Irons, himself from the West Indies and a member

of the Nottingham Council of Social Service Consultative Committee for the

Welfare of Coloured People, claimed that ʻduring the time we have been in this

city (since 1949) we have experienced complete harmony between the races in

spite of any personal misunderstandingʼ.76 This report also quotes David

Muirhead of the Caribbean Welfare Services in London claiming that ʻthere has

never been a clash of such proportions in this country before. It is most

alarmingʼ.77 Even the Home Secretary, Richard Austen Butler, known as Rab

Butler, was quick to stress that ʻwe are rightly proud in this country of the fact

that racial discrimination never has been part of our life or our law. We have

prided ourselves on our hospitality to our fellow human beings from

Commonwealth and colonial territories who enjoy the right of unrestricted entry

to the mother countryʼ.78 In this strand of public debate, racism, and in particular

racist violence, was seen as something incompatible with the values of British

society.

! Attempts to use public outrage at the violence to promote tolerance

emerged from many sectors of society in the post-riot weeks. Much of this

commentary came from Church figures, such as Trevor Huddleston of Londonʼs

Priory of St. Paul, who wrote in The Times:

If [the race rioting] should lead to the restrictive legislation which some desire, then
it will be evident that this country positively desires a colour-bar and is prepared to
enforce one. But if it should lead, as it still may, to a radical searching of the
conscience on the part of ordinary citizens and to a determination that the evil of

158
 colour-discrimination be totally eradicated from out national life, then much good
will have come out of evil.79

Similarly, the Bishop of Chester described the riots as ʻa blessing in disguiseʼ

since they might inspire Britons to become less complacent and to ask ʻwhat

was amiss with our society and especially with our educational system that it

could produce people anxious to incite others to acts of racial discriminationʼ.80

As these comments show, the Church was at the forefront of Britainʼs calls for

racial harmony after the rioting.

! However, the Church was not alone in making these types of arguments

and a number of events took place that were aimed at tackling racist attitudes,

such as a one day conference of sixth form students from Londonʼs grammar

schools held to discuss how Britain could resist racial prejudice.81 The press,

too, sometimes sought to encourage racial harmony. The Daily Mirror began a

series of articles under the headline ʻIntroducing to You...ʼ, in which a different

section of the immigrant population was discussed each day.82 The first of these

was called ʻthe boys from Jamaicaʼ and made several claims that Britons owed

Jamaicans the right to live in Britain. The article observes, for instance, that

ʻabout 70,000 of [Britainʼs non-white immigrant population] are from Surrey,

Middlesex and Cornwall - the three counties of Jamaica, British for 300 yearsʼ,

positioning these Jamaicans as colonial subjects who have a shared heritage

with Britain.83 Furthermore, the article notes that ʻduring the war 10,000

Jamaicans came voluntarily to this country to fight for Britainʼ, implicitly

suggesting that Britain could not turn its back on a nation that had done so

much to support it during the Second World War.84 The article also addressed

some of the key concerns expressed by Britons who opposed immigration, such

as ʻare they wasters?ʼ, ʻare they heathens?ʼ and ʻare they stealing our women?ʼ,

by stressing some of the common values that it believed united Britain and
159
Jamaica, such as hard work and religious faith, through claims that ʻin three

years, Jamaicans have sent home £10,000,000 in postal orders to their

dependantsʼ and ʻthree out of every five Jamaicans are members of a Christian

church or groupʼ.85 Highlighting the shared values and histories that united the

British and the Jamaicans,The Daily Mirror became another voice in British

public debate calling for tolerance and understanding of the nationʼs new

immigrant communities.

! However, public anger at the violence in Nottingham and Notting Hill had

little effect on official policy. Although politicians such as Rab Butler were keen

to talk about Britainʼs enduring antipathy to racism, successive governments

took action to curb Commonwealth and colonial immigration. As Peter Fryer has

claimed, ʻbetween 1958 and 1968 black settlers in Britain watched the racist tail

wag the parliamentary dogʼ.86 The Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 relieved

citizens of Commonwealth nations of their right of abode in Britain without

specific permission. These controls were tightened further by the

Commonwealth Immigration Act 1968 and again by the Immigration Act 1971.

1968 saw Enoch Powellʼs infamous ʻRivers of Bloodʼ speech warning the British

public of what he saw as the great dangers of immigration and anti-

discrimination legislation. The post-riot resurgence of anti-racist debate was

soon subsumed by familiar prejudices, but for a moment in late 1958 a protest

was raised and a number of individuals and institutions made very public their

belief that, as The Daily Mirror put it, ʻpeople are human beings even though

they come in different coloursʼ.87

! Reading 1950s Alien Encounter Narratives: Identifying with the Alien

160
! The reading of It! The Terror from Beyond Space outlined in the first half

of this chapter stressed the ways in which aliens and humans were presented

as diametric opposites, allowing them to be understood through British debates

about the perceived opposition between different racial groups. However, it is

clear that this was not the only way in which race was being discussed in late

1958 when It! and Trollenberg were released. That particular historical moment

also produced an anti-racist backlash which called for tolerance and

compassion. As such, it is possible to identify moments of incongruity in It! and

The Trollenberg Terror where the alien Other reveals similarities to the human

Self and in which one can find support for the suggestion that the boundaries

between the racial Other and the presumed white national Self were artificial.

! In It! The Terror from Beyond Space, the connection between the human

and the alien is most apparent during a sequence where the crew of the

spacecraft attempt to slay the creature by exposing it to dangerous nuclear fuel.

With the beast sealed inside the shipʼs reactor room and the protective shutter

separating it from the radioactive material beginning to rise, the camera lingers

on the creature, allowing the audience to see its final moments before its

supposed annihilation. The creature puts its hands up to its face, presumably in

a futile attempt to shield itself from the radiation, and stumbles around the room

in both pain and panic. The suffering of the creature is thus rendered

comprehensible through its performance of recognisably human actions. The

alien Other and the human Self are shown to share some similarities.

! This suggestion is reinforced by a cut to a close-up of the beastʼs face.

As Jackie Stacey has noted, ʻthe close-up shot has conventionally been used

within cinematic practice to signify intimacy between characters within the film

narratives: the close-up is typically on the face and by convention encourages

161
heightened emotional connectionsʼ.88 In terms of the close-up in It!ʼs reactor

room, however, it is not two different characters within the film who are the

subjects of the intimacy, but rather the alien and the audience. The close-up

removes from the frame everything except the creatureʼs face as it prepares for

its own death. The shot suggests a face to face meeting between audience and

beast and forces the viewer to witness its humanised suffering in uncomfortable

detail. This could serve to heighten any sympathy fostered for the creature

during the earlier moments of the sequence, especially in light of the

ʻheightened emotional connectionsʼ that Stacey suggests such shots

encourage.89 As the use of the close-up demonstrates, it is not simply the

actions of the creature, but also the ways in which they are framed that invite

recognition of the humanity of the alien.

! The mask worn by the actor playing the Martian also serves to

underscore the humanisation of the creature during this close-up. Up to this

point the mask has appeared decidedly alien, with pronounced, bony ridges

running upwards from a porcine snout under scaly skin. There was, however,

some confusion during the filmʼs production about how best to render the alienʼs

eyes. Randy Palmer records how Paul Blaisdell, who made the monster

costume for It!, was asked by Robert E. Kent, the filmʼs producer, to make a

costume with ʻreally big eyesʼ built into it, even though they would not be able to

move realistically, because he didnʼt ʻwant to use [actor] Ray Corriganʼs eyesʼ.90

Blaisdell reportedly produced a high quality set of eyes for the creature, but

when he went to deliver the costume Kent was not there and Edward Small,

who worked as an uncredited executive producer on the film, was unimpressed.

On Smallʼs orders, and apparently much to Kentʼs later displeasure, Blaisdell

removed the creatureʼs eyes from the suit, meaning that Corriganʼs real eyes

162
would be visible. John Johnson gives a different account of the suitʼs

production, claiming that the eyes were scrapped not because of

disagreements amongst the crew, but ʻso Corrigan could see betterʼ.91

Whatever the real reason for the removal of the artificial eyes, the end result is

that, when seen in close-up, the creatureʼs face, despite its impressively alien

features, has a disconcertingly human pair of eyes staring out of it. Johnson has

claimed that ʻusing an actorʼs real eyes tends to add more emotion to a monster

mask...especially in closeup shotsʼ.92 This is certainly true of the close-up during

the reactor room sequence in It!, with the human eyes serving to heighten the

mounting sense of horror on the Martianʼs face as it realises that it is about to

die. Furthermore, this is the first close-up of the beastʼs face in the film,

meaning that the humanity of the creature, suggested physically by its eyes,

might have come as a shock to the viewer. Although Corriganʼs performance as

the creature humanises its suffering through its very human responses to pain,

and the close-up shot itself encourages sympathy for the beast, the eyes at the

centre of this image suggest both a literal and metaphorical human being

lurking within the alien skin.

! Cyndy Hendershot has suggested that ʻthe creature in It! is repulsive...a

humanoid reptilian creature with pig-like nostrilsʼ.93 Hendershotʼs observation is

typical of those made by a number of writers who have similarly characterised

the beast as a demonic grotesque. Randy Palmer, for example, termed the

creature a ʻnightmarish vision of a Martian vampireʼ.94 Even Corriganʼs then-

wife, Elaine DuPont, herself a genre cinema actress, described her husbandʼs

character as a ʻhorrible monsterʼ.95 These commentators are correct that during

the majority of the film the alien creature is presented as a terrifying brute, but in

the remarkable sequence in the reactor room the humanity beneath the surface

163
of the alien Other is put on display. For a few moments the film suggests that

the human and the alien are one and the same, quite literally so if the creatureʼs

human eyes encourage the viewer to withdraw from the diegesis and note

Corriganʼs presence in the alien suit. If, as Neil Badmington has argued, ʻthe

sudden presence of the alien [creates] a coherent sense of the humanʼ in this

film, then during this sequence it is the collapse of that binary through the

sudden presence of the human within the alien which troubles the distinction

between the Self and the Other.96 In this way, It! encourages an exploration of

the artificiality of the distinction between the Self and the Other.

! The Trollenberg Terror also questions this distinction, again during a

sequence in which the aliens are put through physical pain. Towards the end of

the film the humans defend the besieged observatory by throwing molotov

cocktails at the aliens and summoning a fire bomb strike from an overhead

plane. As the bombs begin to fall the creatures are engulfed by flames. Their

screams are initially inhuman wails, but as the conflagration takes hold the

creatures begin to sound increasingly like children, even babies at times,

yelping in agony. Just as in It!, the creatures are shown to respond to pain in a

recognisably human manner. While It! achieved this through the physical

reaction of the creature, Trollenberg uses sound to create a similar effect.

! In It! the humanisation of the creature as it suffered was stressed through

the use of a close-up shot. Trollenberg also highlights the humanised alienʼs

suffering, but this is achieved through the duration and intensity of the images.

One and a half minutes of screen time are devoted to the bombing of the

observatory and its aftermath. This lengthy sequence is dominated by images of

burning bodies, making extensive use of lingering shots of blackened and

smoking extraterrestrial limbs. The intensity of the bonfire as it chars the alien

164
flesh is underscored by the sound of crackling flames. The sequence does not

end when the fire goes out and the audience is then presented with a series of

burned alien corpses. The duration of the sequence gives the audience time to

consider the brutality of these images and the humanisation of the creatures

suggested by the uncomfortably human screaming that they produced. Both It!

and Trollenberg place emphasis on the pain experienced by aliens and their

recognisable responses to suffering as a means of humanising the creatures. In

these moments the binary opposition of alien and human collapses, suggesting

the artificiality of the distinction between the Self and the Other.

! This positioning of the alien as a sympathetic creature and the resultant

questioning of the boundary between Self and Other was not limited to these

two films and became a feature of some prominent examples of 1950s science

fiction cinema, a fact that did not escape British film magazines of the era. For

example, Picturegoerʼs reviewer concluded that ʻhorrible, rather than horror, is

the word for the scenes of realistic holocaust when the eight- or nine-foot ants in

Them! [1954] are roasted aliveʼ, demonstrating an emotional bond with the

filmʼs monsters.97 One year later, in the pages of the same publication the

famed British Director Val Guest requested that the British press did not refer to

his film, The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), as ʻhorrorʼ but rather as a ʻchillerʼ

since ʻthe monster or “thing” who destroys life against its will, is something to

feel sorry forʼ.98 Through such articles it was suggested to the British public that

science fictionʼs creatures were not necessarily monsters and could be thought

of as sympathetic figures in much the same way as this chapter has shown was

possible in Trollenberg and It!.

! It is significant that It! and Trollenberg contain moments of uncertainty

about the difference between the Self and the Other given that these films were

165
released at a time when questions were being asked in Britain about the extent

to which the Othering of racialised subjects could be tolerated in the wake of the

1958 race riots. If the readings presented in the first half of the chapter saw the

battle between humans and aliens as a parallel to the antagonistic relationship

between some white Britons and some black immigrants, then the more

sympathetic moments in the treatment of the Other in It! and Trollenberg had

the potential to demonstrate the artificiality of these distinctions. It is possible

that these films drew attention to the fact that looks could be deceiving and

suggested that the colonial immigrants who arrived during the 1950s deserved

the same respect as native Britons regardless of the colour of their skin.

! Conclusion

! Race has not proven a popular lens through which to make sense of

1950s alien encounter films. The alien Other in 1950s science fiction has

become so strongly associated with the communist infiltrators who haunted the

American public imagination at this time that there has been little examination of

the different societal Others that it might have evoked when these films were

screened elsewhere. In Britain, for example, public debate framed newly arrived

black immigrants from Commonwealth and colonial territories as racial Others

distinct from the presumed white national Self. The possibility that science

fiction's creatures were understood as racialised figures analogous to these

economic migrants was raised by the genreʼs reliance on familiar racial

stereotypes and comparisons between darkly coloured alien costumes and

white-skinned human actors. The consequent suggestion that, just like the alien

creatures of these films, Britainʼs newly arrived immigrants drained resources

166
and put pressure on native communities mirrored much of the public

commentary that followed the 1958 race riots in Nottingham and Notting Hill.

! However, there was also a significant backlash against British racism in

the period after the riots that could similarly have helped to shape the meanings

that 1950s alien encounter films adopted. For many Britons, the violence of late

1958 underscored the need to tackle racist attitudes and to demonstrate that

differences between the races were artificial, social constructs. The fact that It!

and Trollenberg contained moments which humanised their alien creatures

indicates that these films were capable of underlining the insignificance of

external appearances. The revelation that the alien was more human than had

been initially anticipated allowed both films to support the suggestion made in

public debate during 1958 that Britainʼs white and black residents were no

different from each other.

! This chapter has shown that, at least during late 1958, the figure of the

alien Other was able to take on unique meanings in Britain as a result of

national debates about race and immigration. Because these readings rely on

the forms that public discussion about such issues took in Britain at that time,

they represent a specifically British perspective on 1950s science fiction films.

They could not, for example, have been duplicated exactly by US audiences

since Americans were party to a differently inflected understanding of race and

immigration produced by their own national circumstances. As the Introduction

to the thesis noted, these issues meant very different things in Britain and

America at that time since mass immigration did not begin in the US until the

1960s and the countryʼs population remained overwhelmingly white throughout

the 1950s.99 Consequently, the readings outlined above represent an

understanding of the 1950s alien encounter films that reflects a British

167
perspective on an issue that mattered in Britain in a way that it did not in

America. The arguments presented here have consequently further expanded

our knowledge of the specificity of the British reception history of the alien

encounter narratives, demonstrating that debates which have not been seen as

important to the American reception of these films were certainly able to shape

their meaning in Britain. Consequently, this chapter has shown that the

globalisation of American readings of 1950s science fiction cinema limits our

understanding of the rich range of British debates that framed the interpretation

of these films.

Notes
1Lee, Stephen J. 1996. Aspects of British Political History 1914-1995. London: Routledge. p.
347.
2Anon. 6 October 1951. ʻCampaign Contrasts Among Londonʼs “Overspill”ʼ, The Manchester
Guardian. p.2; Anon. 12 July 1956. ʻWill Redundancies Cause a Colour Problem?ʼ, The
Manchester Guardian. p.8.
3 Osborne, Cyril. 20 January 1955. ʻImmigration into Britainʼ, The Times. p.9.
4Anon. 13 October 1958. ʻNew Deportation Power Likely to Be Soughtʼ, The Times. p.6;
MacWilliams, Kenneth. 19 September 1958. ʻTreatment of Aliensʼ, The Times. p.16.
5 Anon. 3 September 1958a. ʻBlack v Whiteʼ, The Daily Mirror. p.20.
6Miles, Robert. 1997. ʻBeyond the “Race” Concept: The Reproduction of Racism in Englandʼ, in
Gates (1997: 249-274). p.255.
7 Ibid.
8 Phizacklea, Annie and Robert Miles. 1980. Labour and Racism. London: Routledge. p.21.
9Shain, Farzana. 2003. The Schooling and Identity of Asian Girls. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham
Books. p.48.
10 Dyer, Richard. 1997. White. London: Routledge. p.19.
11Brook, Norman. 10 November 1955. Letter addressed to Prime Minister Anthony Eden.
National Archives file PREM 11/2920.
12 Anon. ʻBlack v Whiteʼ. p.20.

168
13 Issues of race and immigration have been raised in relation to 1950s science fiction films in
an American context in a passing comment in Cantor, Paul A. 2008. ʻUn-American Gothic: The
Fear of Globalization in Popular Cultureʼ, in Bertho, Crawford and Fogarty (2008: 109-127). p.
118. These concerns also underpin Katrina Mannʼs discussion of Invasion of the Body
Snatchers (1956) as a representation of the perceived assault on white, patriarchal,
heterosexual society in 1950s America. See Mann, Katrina. 2004. ʻ“Youʼre Next!”: Postwar
Hegemony Besieged in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”ʼ, Cinema Journal. Vol. 44, No. 1.
Autumn. pp.49-68. However, neither of these discussions takes race or immigration as its
primary focus and there has not yet been a sustained debate about the relationship between
these issues and 1950s science fiction cinema.
14Brook, Norman. 10 November 1955. Letter addressed to Prime Minister Anthony Eden.
National Archives file PREM 11/2920.
15More, Charles. 2007. Britain in the Twentieth Century. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited. p.
238.
16 Penketh, Laura. 2000. Tackling Institutional Racism. Bristol: The Policy Press. p.52.
17 Phizacklea and Miles. Labour and Racism. p.21.
18 Miles. ʻBeyond the “Race” Conceptʼ. p.255.
19Miles, Robert and Rudy Torres. 2007. ʻDoes “Race” Matter? Transatlantic Perspectives on
Racism after “Race Relation”ʼ, in Gupta, James, Maaka, Galabuzi and Chris (2007: 65-73). p.
66.
20
Bowling, Benjamin. 1998. Violent Racism: Victimization, Policing and Social Context. Oxford:
Oxford University Press. p.28.
21 Bowling. Violent Racism. p.28.
22Alibhai-Brown, Yasmin. 2000. Who Do We Think We Are?: Imagining a New Britain. London:
Allen Lane. p.29.
23 Field, Frank and Patricia Haikin. 1971. Black Britons. London: Oxford University Press. p.4.
24 Ibid.
25 Desai, Rashmi. 1963. Indian Immigrants in Britain. London: Oxford University Press. p.6.
26 Field and Haikin. Black Britons. p.12.
27Bishop, F. A. 3 July 1957. Letter addressed to Prime Minister Harold Macmillan . National
Archives file PREM 11/2920.
28Author Illegible. 27 June 1958. Letter addressed to Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. National
Archives file PREM 11/2920.
29 Ibid.
30 Jordan, Colin. 8 February 1953. ʻColoured Immigrantsʼ, The Observer. p.2.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
33 Little, Kenneth. 7 May 1954. ʻColonial Immigrationʼ, The Manchester Guardian . p.8.
34Brook, Norman. 10 November 1955. Letter addressed to Prime Minister Anthony Eden.
National Archives file PREM 11/2920.
35 Bowling. Violent Racism. p.29; Miles. ʻBeyond the “Race” Conceptʼ. p.255.

169
36Geddes, Andrew. 2003. The Politics of Migration and Immigration in Europe. London, SAGE
Publications. p.33.
37 Anon. 8 October 1954. ʻLondon Docks Are Almost Stoppedʼ, The Daily Mirror. p.16.
38 Ibid.
39Anon. 3 September 1958b. ʻ“Brown Town” Diagnoses Its Own Illsʼ, The Manchester Guardian.
p.12.
40 Ibid.
41 Anon. 22 March 1955. ʻThe Racketeer Landlords”, The Daily Mirror. p.7.
42Author Illegible. 17 July 1957. Letter addressed to Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. National
Archives file PREM 11/2920.
43 Anon. ʻBlack v Whiteʼ. p.20.
44 Anon. 28 August 1958. ʻRenewed Call for Changes in Immigration Lawʼ, The Times. p.4.
45 Ibid.
46 Ibid.
47 Home Office. 4 September 1958. ʻNote for Recordʼ. National Archives file PREM 11/2920.
48Thompson, Noel B. W. 10 September 1958. ʻHousing and Race Friction: The Coloured
Tenantʼ, The Manchester Guardian. p.6.
49 Anon. 17 September 1958. ʻThe Flashpoint at Notting Hillʼ, The Daily Mirror. p.9.
50 Holloway, Gerry. 2005. Women and Work in Britain Since 1840. Abingdon: Routledge. p.206.
51 Anon. 4 October 1958. ʻLondon Cinemasʼ, The Manchester Guardian. p.3.
52Hendershot, Cyndy. 2001. I Was a Cold War Monster: Horror Films, Eroticism and the Cold
War Imagination. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. p.53;
Flynn, John L. 1992. Cinematic Vampires. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. p.116; Melton, J. Gordon.
1994. The Vampire Book: The Encyclopaedia of the Undead. Canton, MI: Visible Ink Press. p.
524.
53
See, for example, Hudson, Dale. 2008. ʻVampires of Colour and the Performance of
Multicultural Whitenessʼ, in Bernardi (2008: 127-156).
54Polan, Dana. 1997. ʻEros and Syphilization: The Contemporary Horror Filmʼ, in Gibian(1997:
119-128). p.119.
55Badmington, Neil. 2004. Alien Chic: Posthumanism and the Other Within. Abingdon:
Routledge. pp.20-21.
56
Jancovich, Mark. 1996. Rational Fears: American Horror in the 1950s. Manchester:
Manchester University Press. pp.174-176.
57Although this suggests that Jancovich is interested in the relationship between race and
1950s science fiction cinema, his observation is not developed further. See Jancovich. Rational
Fears. p.184.
58Snead, James A. 1994. White Screen, Black Images: Hollywood from the Dark Side. London:
Routledge. p.8.
59 Anon. ʻBlack v Whiteʼ. p.20.

170
60Forrest, Elizabeth. 1 November 1958. ʻThe Case of the Frightened Ladiesʼ, Picturegoer. pp.
8-9.
61 Jordan. ʻColoured Immigrantsʼ. p.2.
62 Forrest. ʻThe Case of the Frightened Ladiesʼ. pp.8-9.
63Bellin, Joshua David. 2005. Framing Monsters: Fantasy Film and Social Alienation.
Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. p.22.
64
Erb, Cynthia. 1998. Tracking King Kong: A Hollywood Icon in World Culture. Detroit, MI:
Wayne State University Press. p.69.
65 Bogle, Donald. 2001. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretive History
of Blacks in American Films. New York, NY: The Continuum International Publishing Group.
(Originally published in 1973). p.13. Although Bogleʼs work on the pure black buck focuses on
American cinema, the anxiety about black male sexuality that this stereotype embodies was a
feature of British culture too. Lola Young has observed that ʻthe themes and preoccupations of
[1950s and 1960s British films], made by white film-makers, articulate tensions regarding
interracial relationshipsʼ, suggesting the stigmatisation of romance between people of different
races in Britain during this period. See Young, Lola. 1996. Fear of the Dark: ʻRaceʼ, Gender and
Sexuality in the Cinema. Abingdon: Routledge. p.86.
66 Bogle. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks. pp.13-14.
67 Bellin. Framing Monsters. pp.21-23.
68 The monsterʼs sexual fixation on a white woman was a common trope in 1950s science fiction
films, notably in The Creature from the Black Lagoon, mentioned above, and I Married a
Monster from Outer Space (1958), which sees an alien posing as a human male in order to
marry and impregnate a white woman with the aim of repopulating his planet.
69 Anon. 26 September 1953. ʻThe Beast from 20,000 Fathomsʼ, Picturegoer. p.15.
70 Anon. 19 September 1953. ʻHow About THIS In Your Lap?ʼ, Picturegoer. p.25.
71 Anon. 28 June 1952a. ʻIs This Really The Thing?ʼ, Picturegoer. p.7.
72 Anon. ʻBlack v Whiteʼ. p.20.
73Webster, Wendy. 2005. Englishness and Empire 1939-1965. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
p.165.
74
Shameful Incident. 4 September 1958. Pathé News. Camera: Pat Whitaker. Issue no. 58/71.
UK.
75 Ibid.
76 Anon. 26 August 1958. ʻRace Clash in Nottingham “Alarming”ʼ, The Times. p.4.
77 Ibid.
78 Anon. 6 September 1958. ʻMr. Butler on Race Clashesʼ, The Times. p.6.
79 Huddleston, Trevor. 30 August 1958. ʻRace-Riots in Nottinghamʼ, The Times. p.7.
80 Anon. 24 September 1958. ʻRace Trouble “Blessing in Disguise”ʼ, The Times. p.4.
81 Anon. 10 October 1958. ʻA Sixth Form View of Race Prejudiceʼ, The Times. p.4.
82Anon. 8 September 1958. ʻIntroducing to You...The Boys from Jamaicaʼ, The Daily Mirror. p.
13.
83 Ibid.

171
84 Ibid.
85 Ibid.
86Fryer, Peter. 1984. Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain. London: Pluto
Press. p.381.
87 Anon. ʻIntroducing to You...The Boys from Jamaicaʼ. p.13.
88Stacey, Jackie. 1994. Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship. London:
Routledge. p.210.
89Stacey, Jackie. 1994. Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship. London:
Routledge. p.210.
90 Palmer, Randy. 1997. Paul Blaisdell: Monster Maker. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. p.201.
91Johnson, John. 1996. Cheap Tricks and Class Acts: Special Effects, Makeup and Stunts from
the Films of the Fantastic Fifties. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. p.121.
92Ibid. The use of humanised physiognomy to increase a creatureʼs emotional impact is a
familiar trope for fans of science fiction. It has been used to great effect throughout the genreʼs
history, notably in the alien hybrid in Alien: Resurrection (1997).
93 Hendershot. I Was a Cold War Monster. p.53.
94 Palmer. Paul Blaisdell. p.206.
95 Weaver, Tom. 2002. Science Fiction Confidential. Jefferson, NC: MacFarland. p.100.
96 Badmington. Alien Chic. pp.20-21.
97 Anon. 4 September 1954. ʻThem!ʼ, Picturegoer. p.22.
98 Stoddart, Sarah. 26 November 1955. ʻBritain Gets a Monsterʼ, Picturegoer. p.11.
99 Willis, Charles A. 2005. America in the 1950s. New York: Facts on File. pp.5-6.

172
 Section B:

Science and Technology

173
 Chapter Four: Nuclear Technology and 1950s Science Fiction

Cinemaʼs Creature Features

! Introduction

! The 1950s is often characterised as a period of atomic panic in which the

worldʼs most powerful militaries produced vast stockpiles of atomic bombs,

providing the means by which the Cold War could potentially heat up, while civil

engineers erected nuclear power plants, giving the public cause for concern

about the possibility of a meltdown. The atomic age certainly provided British

society with a plethora of new threats about which it could be justifiably terrified,

but, as is so often the case, cinema went even further. 1950s science fiction

films presented a world in which nuclear technology gave birth to a wave of

mutated insects, radioactive lizard monsters and prehistoric beasts woken from

their slumber by an atomic blast. This was a decade in which science fiction

imagined the world, as Ian Conrich puts it, ʻbesieged by colossal creaturesʼ, the

vast majority of which were in some way the result of nuclear experimentation.1

Against a backdrop of the real-world horror of potential nuclear annihilation,

these so-called ʻcreature featuresʼ, such as Beginning of the End (1958), Them!

(1954) and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), set about imagining

monstrous, radioactive beasts whose fear factor was fuelled by an increased

public awareness of the debates surrounding nuclear technology.

! Conventional wisdom tells us that the simultaneous rise of these celluloid

nuclear monsters and the emergence of the nuclear arms race as a key

battleground of the Cold War was no accident. The study of the ways in which

1950s science fiction films negotiated and interpreted American Cold War

atomic panic has provoked much debate in recent decades. Cyndy Hendershot,

174
for example, explicitly situates these films within the context of 1950s American

nuclear paranoia, arguing that the eraʼs creature features ʻexamine the potential

eclipsing of the human species brought about by the atomic bomb and its

psychological and physiological effectsʼ.2 Similarly, Melvin E. Matthews has

claimed that ʻHollywood churned out atomic mutation films that came to

symbolize the nuclear-age anxietiesʼ of 1950s America.3 Adilifu Nama, too, has

observed that ʻscience fiction cinema of the 1950s became the primary vehicle

for American film audiences to attempt to confront feelings of dread and despairʼ

which resulted in part from ʻthe nuclear threat attached to the political

gamesmanship of the cold warʼ.4 As indicated in Chapter One, these arguments

typify much of the critical debate about nuclear technology in 1950s science

fiction cinema in that they describe genre films of the era as projections of

American nuclear anxieties.

! The creature features of this period certainly display a narrative

preoccupation with radiation, but this chapter explores the range of meanings

that these films might have held given Britainʼs unique relationship to nuclear

technology during the 1950s. Although many western nations, Britain included,

feared Soviet nuclear aggression during this period, there were discrepancies

between the ways in which they understood and related to the nuclear threat.

As Tracy C. Davisʼ comparative study of civil defence in Britain, America and

Canada has indicated, Americans and Canadians could rely on their basements

for some refuge from a nuclear attack, while British homes largely did not offer

this type of protection.5 American cities were dispersed across a vast continent

while Britain was a small, relatively densely populated island that could more

easily be choked by radioactive fallout. The French and British desired nuclear

weapons in part to bolster their significance in an age of decolonisation while

175
Americaʼs vast stockpile of warheads became a symbol of the nationʼs position

as the only remaining western superpower. Subtle differences in the ways in

which these technologies were understood in different territories meant that

1950s nuclear anxieties manifested in different forms across the west.

Consequently, readings of 1950s creature features that have been derived from

American nuclear paranoia cannot necessarily be transposed onto British

audiences. Even within Britain, however, nuclear anxieties were not uniform,

since the danger posed by Soviet weaponry might have been much more acute

to a Londoner than, for example, to a resident of the rural Scottish Highlands.

Although Conrich has begun the task of analysing the ways in which British

nuclear anxieties shaped domestic 1950s science fiction films, his work on this

topic is relatively concise and the diversity of attitudes on display in the country

is not accounted for.6 This chapter aims to expand on this existing work by

exploring how 1950s Britons understood and related to nuclear technology and

how the range of opinions and outlooks present in Britain allowed different

interpretations of the eraʼs atomic creature features to emerge.

! In order to account for at least some of this diversity, the analysis that

follows again presents two different perspectives on the issue. The first of these

examines aspects of 1950s British public debate which encouraged Britons to

recognise the unique horror of nuclear warfare, but to contextualise it within

their relatively recent memories of the British home front during World War II.

The first half of this chapter argues that some Britons suffered a similar nuclear

paranoia to their American counterparts, but that this was expressed through an

understanding of the nuclear bomb derived from their experiences of Nazi

bombing in the 1940s. This facet of the British understanding of nuclear war is

then used as a lens through which to examine a particular narrative moment

176
that is repeated across the majority of the 1950s creature features, namely the

monsterʼs attack on a major city. This moment has been chosen as it often

contains images that mirror both the British civilian experience of the Second

World War and the nationʼs planning for a nuclear attack. This is certainly true of

the two case study films addressed by this chapter. Both Behemoth the Sea

Monster, a British creature feature from 1959 which sees London faced with a

colossal reptilian creature, and It Came from Beneath the Sea, an American film

from 1955 in which a gigantic octopus attacks San Francisco, contain images

that might have been understood as allusions to both the Blitz and to British

planning for nuclear war, making them suitable candidates for exploration

through British anxieties about nuclear technology that were often rooted in

experiences of the Second World War.

! The second half of this chapter reexamines these films through a

different assessment of Britainʼs understanding of nuclear technology. For some

in Britain, anxieties about the atomic age jostled with the notion that nuclear

technology represented the nationʼs best hope for recovery after the Second

World War had battered its economy and international influence. For these

Britons, the nationʼs nuclear expertise, signalled in part by the opening of

Calder Hall, the worldʼs first nuclear reactor capable of producing commercial

quantities of electricity, led to optimism that nuclear technology represented a

way for the British economy to cast off its former reliance on Anglo-American

loan money and emerge into a new, high-tech future. Although Britons were

certainly aware of the potentially devastating military use of nuclear material,

they were also encouraged to consider its peaceful use in civilian life and its

potential to inspire international co-operation in the post-war years. This

positioning of nuclear technology as both necessary and desirable is used to

177
reassess Behemoth the Sea Monster and It Came from Beneath the Sea.

Reading both films through the more positive aspects of Britainʼs outlook on the

atomic age, this section uncovers the ways in which they signalled the

beneficial potential of the countryʼs nuclear project, helped to legitimise Britainʼs

use of nuclear power despite its inherent risks and bolstered the nationʼs drive

towards developing its nuclear expertise.

! Just as earlier chapters have found contrasting messages available to

British audiences in 1950s science fiction cinema, this chapter will also suggest

that nuclear technology was a contested site in British public debate and hence

that its presence in the eraʼs creature features rendered them open to

reinterpretation by different sections of the British public. Crucially, the different

reading strategies described below are each derived from the British

understanding of nuclear technology during the 1950s and hence represent a

uniquely British perspective on these films. The interpretations offered here

address the specificity of the British response to the presentation of the atomic

age in 1950s creature features and consequently offer a means by which the

globalisation of American readings of these films, derived exclusively from US

nuclear paranoia, can be resisted.

! Characterising Public Debate: Nuclear Anxieties in 1950s Britain

! In her work on 1950s American attitudes towards the nuclear bomb,

Cyndy Hendershot observed that it was often seen as ʻmerely another

conventional weapon that would be used in the next world warʼ.7 Hendershot

suggests that American ʻdiscussions of the atomic bomb analogized it with

conventional bombsʼ through a comparison of its destructive power with that of

TNT.8 During the latter half of the 1950s, British public debate often followed

178
suit. In early 1955, for example, The Manchester Guardian described nuclear

explosions performed by Americaʼs Atomic Energy Commission as ʻranging

from one kiloton to fifty kilotonsʼ, clarifying that ʻone kiloton is the power

equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNTʼ.9 The Times similarly discussed plans to

excavate a second Panama Canal by using nuclear devices ʻwith a total

explosive yield corresponding to 16.2, 18.6 and 15.35 million tons of TNTʼ.10

Even when trying to address the novelty of these weapons, The Daily Mirror

resorted to comparisons between one nuclear bomb and ʻseveral million tons of

TNTʼ, seemingly unable to express to the reader the true force of the explosion

without equating it to conventional weaponry.11 This trope was still active as late

as 1959, when The Manchester Guardian questioned ʻwhether the

seismographic record of a nuclear explosion can be distinguished from that of a

conventional oneʼ.12 Be it as a result of the inadequacy of written descriptions of

nuclear explosions, the sheer unfamiliarity of nuclear weapons or a desire to

rationalise away the horrific capability of these bombs, the British press often

fell back on the same tactics as their American counterparts, conventionalising

nuclear bombs through comparisons to their non-nuclear predecessors.

! Perhaps as a result of the fact that British public debate often considered

nuclear weaponry as an updated form of the bombs dropped on the nation by

the Nazis, atomic age civil defence planning in Britain was largely based on

models used during the Blitz. Second World War tactics for protecting the

population from aerial bombardment, such as the use of public bomb shelters

and the evacuation of children from population centres, formed the backbone of

Britainʼs atomic age civil defence. As Tracy C. David notes, ʻthe British

maintained and updated the plans they had executed in 1938-45 for the

removal of selected groups from vulnerable cities to the countryside and to

179
Irelandʼ.13 Emanuel J. de Kadt has similarly indicated that before 1960 official

planning for a nuclear attack on Britain entailed evacuating twelve million

people from urban areas.14 For de Kadt, ʻthe whole idea of evacuating, on a

voluntary basis, before the outbreak of war, women, children, the aged and

others in priority groups, from predetermined evacuation areas to

predetermined reception areasʼ, very much a feature of the nationʼs plans in the

event of a nuclear war, ʻis a leftover from World War IIʼ.15 The notion that

nuclear bombs were a mere evolution of conventional weaponry was further

signalled in 1950s Britain through the recycling of Second World War era civil

defence strategies.

! Similarly, British civil defence exercises, often vast citywide pieces of

theatre which rehearsed the aftermath of a nuclear strike, helped to ground the

nationʼs perception of such an event in wartime experiences of conventional

bombing. During one such exercise in 1959, the population of Preston was

asked to perform a dry run of the procedures that had been devised for the

eventuality of a nearby nuclear attack. A recording of this exercise, made under

the title County Borough of Preston Civil Defence Exercise “Prestonian”, shows

that sequences of the drill took place amongst crumbling buildings reminiscent

of the bombed out ruins of Blitz era British cities.16 Although Preston itself never

faced sustained bombardment during the war, there is evidence that some

bombs did fall on the city. As one survivor, Fred Latham, has noted:

You could hear the planes coming over towards Barrow, which was full of the
shipping and construction industries…The returning planes were the more
dangerous because they would release any bombs they hadnʼt had chance to
drop over Barrow.17

It is possible, therefore, that the partially destroyed buildings that were used

during the Preston civil defence exercise to stand in for the structures

devastated by a nuclear blast had, in reality, been hit by Nazi bombs. Similar

180
civil defence exercises took place in various cities across the country, a

significant proportion of which had been subjected to wartime bombing. Barrow,

Bath, Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Canterbury, Cardiff, Coventry, Clydebank,

Exeter, Greenock, Hull, Liverpool, Manchester, Norwich, Plymouth and York

each fell under heavy bombardment and any civil defence exercises held in

these cities were very likely to have been performed against the backdrop of

buildings that had crumbled under the Nazi bombing, but which now stood in for

the radioactive ruins of an atomic attack. This potential equation in the minds of

participants and observers of the destruction caused by German bombing runs

with the destruction caused by a nuclear strike meant that civil defence

exercises like that in Preston risked further masking the differences between

nuclear and conventional warfare.

! There is evidence that this type of public confusion was prevalent in

Britain in the late 1950s. The Times reported in 1957 that a Miss Pauline Webb

had claimed during a meeting of Church bodies that ʻyoung people of her

generation who had grown up since the war looked back in anger to childhood

memories of the “blitz” and forward in fear to the threat of the hydrogen bombʼ.18

This suggests that, for some Britons, conventional and nuclear war were seen

as merely different facets of the same violent undercurrent that characterised

the era. One year later, The Times reported that, while it would still be

impossible to shoot down a German V2 rocket, progress had been made in

defence since it was now possible to detect an intercontinental ballistic missile

(I.C.B.M.) via radar.19 The atomic era I.C.B.M. is here framed as an advanced

form of the V2 from the Second World War. In 1959, The Times discussed how

Britainʼs Womenʼs Volunteer Services, founded during the Second World War

ʻto bring home to all women...what air raids might mean, and what they could do

181
for their families and themselvesʼ, was still involved in ʻpreparing the household

woman for air raids. Only this time it will be the nuclear kindʼ.20 The press thus

also contributed to the perpetuation of the belief that nuclear warfare and

conventional warfare were not dissimilar.

! This suggestion became a common motif of late 1950s public debate.

When nuclear war became a real possibility so soon after the end of the Second

World War, Britain returned to the tried and tested survival strategies that had

prevented the already high casualty figures of the Blitz becoming even more

extreme. Although these plans were updated and amended as appropriate for

the atomic age, images and ideas associated with the Blitz, such as mass

evacuations, bomb shelters, conventional explosives and ruined cityscapes,

came to underpin the public understanding of the new threat of nuclear war.

Both conventional and nuclear warfare came to share this common iconography

in Britain, suggesting the extent to which they had become intertwined in public

perception.

! However, British public debate was not so caught up in the notion that

nuclear warfare was analogous to conventional warfare that it ignored the new

dangers posed by the bomb. Despite what Tony Shaw describes as government

efforts aimed at ʻdownplaying the effects of radioactive fall-outʼ, information on

the unique and terrifying nature of these weapons was available to Britons

during the late 1950s.21 Indeed, there was a trend during this period for the

proliferation of specific facts and figures about the consequences of a nuclear

attack on a British city. In 1955, for example, The Daily Mirror reported:

The casualties would certainly have to be reckoned in the MILLIONS. Gigantic fires
would be instantly ignited by heat and flash. The hearts of towns would be
completely torn out and the radius of destruction by gamma rays may be...anything
within 400 miles...Over 80 per cent of British industry and over a quarter of her
population are contained in the first ten major towns of the British Isles...There is
no comparable target in the world.22

182
Similarly, Dr Antoinette Pirie of Oxford University told The Times in 1959 of ʻan

island 100 miles from Bikini [which] had had to be evacuated for three years

after a nuclear test there in 1954ʼ, suggesting that ʻany survivor of an attack on

Britain would have to be similarly evacuatedʼ even though there existed ʻno

provision for [such an exodus] because it could not be doneʼ.23 Alongside

newspaper articles such as these, the television, still very novel in Britain but

increasingly popular throughout the decade, also capitalised on the British

publicʼs interest in the morbid details of life after a nuclear strike by bringing

dramas about the horrifying consequences of a nuclear explosion into British

homes. J. B. Priestleyʼs ʻDoomsday for Dysonʼ was one such programme

broadcast in early 1958. The Daily Mail heralded this teleplay as ʻthe most

controversial ever seen on TVʼ and explained that it told ʻthe story of an H-bomb

attack on Britain and its effect on one family, the Dysonsʼ.24 This newspaperʼs

reviewer emphasised the distressing nature of this broadcast by noting that

ʻsome of the scenes are considered horrificʼ and ʻbecause of this, there will be a

warning before the play starts that it is NOT suitableʼ for younger viewers.25

Britons were thus made aware of the horrors of nuclear war through a variety of

channels during the late 1950s.

! Although a nuclear war might have been understood by Blitz survivors as

the return of familiar wartime practices, the British public were also informed of

its unique, nightmarish character. British anxieties about nuclear bombardment

were thus intertwined with wartime memories of conventional bombardment.

This connection, forged between an iconic moment in Britainʼs wartime past and

the possibility of the countryʼs future destruction, provided a unique national

inflection to the eraʼs atomic panic.

183
! Reading 1950s Creature Features: Nuclear Blitz

! If Britons partly imagined the prospect of nuclear war through their

experiences of the Blitz, 1950s creature features provided another forum in

which these two different types of conflict became confused. As I argue below,

these films included the type of Blitz iconography that had also come to

symbolise atomic era civil defence in Britain, causing the attack of the monster

to appear as an eerie hybrid of past and future conflicts in much the same way

as many Britons imagined a nuclear attack would be. This section examines the

ways in which this collision of nuclear and conventional warfare manifests in the

1950s creature features through a discussion of two case study films,

Behemoth the Sea Monster and It Came from Beneath the Sea. These films,

and many others of their ilk such as Tarantula (1955) and Godzilla, King of the

Monsters! (1956), presented their creatures as artefacts of the nuclear age, but

the ways in which they framed their attacks on major cities associate them with

the Blitz. In highlighting this system of dual referencing this section suggests

that 1950s creature features had the potential to allow Britons to see their fears

of a nuclear Blitz played out on screen.

! Behemoth the Sea Monster is a British film that was co-written and

directed by Eugène Lourié, a Russian-born Frenchman who worked as a

production designer on a number of Jean Renoirʼs films in the late 1930s. When

Renoir fled the Nazi invasion of France, moving to America in the early 1940s,

Lourié followed him and began working in Hollywood, notably as the art director

of Charlie Chaplinʼs final film, Limelight (1952). During the 1950s and early

1960s he developed a reputation as a leading figure in the production of

science fictionʼs creature features, directing classics of the genre such as The

184
Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Behemoth the Sea Monster and Gorgo (1961), the

latter two of which were both set and produced in London.

! Behemoth begins with a series of mysterious events. A fisherman is

attacked on a beach and is left dying from serious burns, muttering about a

ʻbehemothʼ. Vast numbers of dead fish, later found to be radioactive, wash

ashore on the Cornish coast. Reports are made of a strange creature glimpsed

beneath the water. Troubled by the potential connection between these events,

American scientist Steve Karnes takes charge of a team who are working to

solve the mystery before it is too late. Upon further investigation and

consultation with an excitable palaeontologist, Karnes deduces that the creature

is a prehistoric reptile called the Paeleosaurus. The beast seems to be both

electrified and radioactive, making it particularly deadly to human beings. As

Karnes sets out to tackle the Paeleosaurus, it makes its way up the Thames

estuary and begins to demolish London. The human counterstrike is delayed

once it is discovered that the use of conventional weapons would spill the

creatureʼs radioactive blood across the city. It is reasoned that a radioactive

isotope could be used to bury a torpedo fired from a nearby submarine within

the creature, destroying it from the inside without risking contamination. This

plan succeeds and the monster is slain. However, reports are received of dead

fish washing ashore in America.

! Kim Newman has mentioned how British science fiction invasion

narratives of the 1950s made frequent visual references to the Second World

War.26 As noted above, Ian Conrich has shown that this is also true of the eraʼs

British creature features. Conrich has identified their ʻwarning signs, shelters,

sandbags, public announcements, the civil defence and the emergency

servicesʼ as iconographic images lifted from the British home front of the

185
Second World War.27 Each of these elements is present in Behemoth,

particularly during the lengthy sequence towards the end of the film in which the

citizens of London prepare for the beastʼs approach. Men in uniform arrive in

military vehicles to build makeshift defences and to warn the public about the

oncoming attack. Defensive weaponry is deployed and people prepare to

shelter from the violence. This type of scene, typical of the monster attacks in

many 1950s creature features and common in British offerings such as

Behemoth, would have been familiar to British audiences from their experiences

during the Blitz. In this way, the iconography of Behemothʼs monster attack

serves to equate the creature with the conventional weaponry used by the

Nazis in their bombing of Britain.

! It was not only British creature features that made use of this type of

imagery. Many American films of this type, such as It Came from Beneath the

Sea, also presented their monster attacks through iconography commonly

associated with the Blitz. This film begins with a nuclear submarine suffering a

strange encounter with a mysterious creature off Americaʼs Pacific coast. The

military draft in two scientists, Lesley Joyce and John Carter, to examine flesh

that the beast lost in the machinery of the submarine. They hypothesise that a

colossal octopus has been forced from its lair in an underwater trench due to

contamination by nuclear material. The creature can no longer feed since its

prey are sensitive to radiation and can now feel it coming. The hungry beast has

gone in search of other food and found it in the form of humanity. After the

existence of the octopus is confirmed by the crew of another vessel that is

attacked at sea, the military begins taking the threat seriously. With the beast

seemingly heading towards San Francisco, a trap is laid by unfurling an

electrical net beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. However, the net proves no

186
match for the octopus, which destroys a section of the bridge before making its

way into San Francisco Bay. Sending its long tentacles into the city itself, the

creature makes short work of several buildings and only the militaryʼs

flamethrowers are able to force its retreat back into the water. The ending of the

film mirrors that of Behemoth since a submarine is launched with an atomic

torpedo onboard and, after a scuffle, the warhead is detonated killing the

octopus.

! Just as in Behemoth, the moment when Beneath the Seaʼs monster

attacks the city is littered with the iconography that Conrich has claimed

associated British creature features with the Blitz. ʻWarning signs, shelters,

sandbags, public announcements, the civil defence and the emergency

servicesʼ are all once again present in this film.28 Beneath the Sea features

several appearances of the emergency services, for example, including one

shot in which four police motorcycles and three police cars leave a police

station in formation with their sirens blaring. Behemoth depicts public warnings

about the oncoming attack through radio announcements claiming that there

are ʻthirty-six dead and more than fifty missingʼ and newspaper headlines such

as ʻMonster Attacks Londonʼ. In Beneath the Sea, news about the beastʼs

advance is similarly disseminated through the media with newspaper headlines

such as ʻGolden Gate Closed Tightʼ and ʻCoast Awaits Sea-Beastʼ. Both films

draw attention to the plight of the civilians caught up in the destruction through

scenes of fleeing crowds. Both prominently feature the military response to the

attack through a focus on hardware such as weapons and vehicles. During

these sequences, Beneath the Sea draws on the same thread of imagery as

Behemoth, suggesting that its creatureʼs assault was also available for

interpretation as an analogy of the Blitz.

187
! Another prominent strand of imagery in these films that recalls the British

experience of World War II is their focus on devastated urban landscapes.

Conrich has argued that ʻspectacular shows of urban decimationʼ in British

creature features represent ʻa return to wartime imagesʼ.29 Cyndy Hendershot

has similarly claimed that, even for American viewers who did not suffer through

the hardships of the Blitz, ʻimages of cities in ruins recall the bombed-out cities

of wartime newsreelsʼ.30 This is particularly noticeable in the British creature

feature Gorgo from 1961, which sees another gigantic reptile attack London.

During this film a reporter comments of the urban destruction that ʻthereʼs been

nothing like it, not even the worst of the Blitzʼ. The poster for this film, depicting

the colossal monster standing amid the ruins of a London street, even used a

popular nickname that the British had given to the Second World War, ʻthe big

oneʼ, to describe the beast. However, while Gorgo was particularly ostentatious

in its use of destroyed urban settings to evoke wartime London, both Behemoth

and Beneath the Sea feature similar imagery. Once Behemothʼs titular beast

arrives in London, for example, it smashes buildings, leaving piles of rubble in

its wake, brings down power lines and spreads fires throughout the city. The film

lingers on these images during the attack of the creature, a series of extended

sequences towards the end of the film, the longest of which lasts almost four

minutes. Crucially, this gives the audience adequate time to note the ways in

which these images of a crumbling London mimic the iconography of the Blitz.

The attack of this creature is even directly compared to the Second World War

bombing of London by some of the filmʼs characters when they dismiss the idea

of completely evacuating the city because ʻwe didnʼt even do that at the height

of the Blitzʼ. In this sense, Behemoth prefigures Gorgoʼs reenactment of the

Blitz through images of urban destruction.

188
# It Came from Beneath the Sea makes similar use of shots of a crumbling

urban landscape to Behemoth. As Beneath the Seaʼs gigantic octopus enters

San Francisco Bay it damages the cityʼs famous Golden Gate Bridge before

reaching its enormous tentacles down the cityʼs streets, toppling a clock tower,

smashing windows and walls alike, causing the ground to shake beneath the

feet of fleeing pedestrians and showering civilians with rubble. If British

audiences saw Behemothʼs focus on urban destruction as ʻa return to wartime

imagesʼ, then a similar focus, available for similar readings, is also evident in

Beneath the Sea.31 Perhaps the suggestion of the Blitz is weaker here than in

Behemoth since the latter film is set in London, which, unlike San Francisco,

actually suffered Nazi bombing. However, if, as Conrich indicates, it is simply

scenes of urban destruction that suggest this reading then perhaps the

devastation of San Francisco in Beneath the Sea might also have been

suggestive of the Blitz.

! Although the use of Blitz iconography in these monster attack sequences

may have been noted by US audiences, it was likely to have taken on particular

meaning in Britain where, as the previous section suggested, this type of

imagery was also associated with nuclear warfare. In referencing the British

home front, these films also simultaneously referenced British civil defence

planning for a nuclear strike. In these terms, Conrich suggests that the Blitz

images that he identifies also resembled ʻcontingency measures...for a possible

nuclear attackʼ.32 Indeed, each of these icons of the Blitz, including the

emergency services, sandbags and warning signs, was also on the streets of

Preston during the civil defence exercise depicted in County Borough of

Preston Civil Defence Exercise “Prestonian”. They formed part of the common

iconography that the home front of the Second World War shared with British

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atomic era civil defence. Having experienced civil defence exercises such as

that in Preston, the British public might well have been primed to read the

imagery that surrounded the attacks made on cities by the monsters of the eraʼs

creature features as evocations of both the Blitz and, consequently, nuclear

warfare. However, whereas Conrich discusses these as two distinct points of

reference to which the imagery of the 1950s creature features alluded, the

historical evidence presented earlier in this chapter suggests that the Blitz and

the possibility of a nuclear strike had largely become amalgamated in the public

imagination, indicating that the monster attack sequences in Behemoth and

Beneath the Sea could appear to be the type of nuclear Blitz that many Britons

feared.

! This is also evident in terms of the ruined urban landscapes depicted in

these films. Conrich reads their ruined cityscapes as ʻa return to wartime

imagesʼ, but they also recalled the ways in which the British envisioned a

nuclear war.33 Britons had been warned by The Manchester Guardian as early

as 1953 to expect ʻbetween 50,000 and 100,000 homeless persons...from the

dropping of a single atomic bomb on a British cityʼ, thereby stressing the level of

damage a city could anticipate in the event of a nuclear attack.34 Indeed, the

Preston civil defence exercise took place amongst the crumbling ruins of

bombed out houses that stood in for this type of nuclear urban devastation. Just

like the other icons of the home front featured in the monster attack sequences

of 1950s science fiction films, scenes of inner-city destruction thus became

suggestive not only of Blitz imagery, but also of a nuclear war. As such, the

shells of ruined buildings became another site at which past and potential

conflicts merged in both the British imagination and in the eraʼs creature

features.

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! Both It Came from Beneath the Sea and Behemoth the Sea Monster are

products of a post-war era in which the world had already seen cities such as

London come under sustained aerial bombardment. Consequently it is perhaps

unsurprising that the ways in which they imagined urban conflict, albeit with a

monstrous creature replacing a foreign aggressor, drew heavily on the

experiences of the British people who had suffered through a protracted period

of Nazi bombing. In Britain, however, these wartime experiences were the base

on which civil defence programmes built their plans for a nuclear attack. For

many Britons, the iconography of the Blitz had been re-imagined as the imagery

of atomic age warfare. Consequently, when films such as Beneath the Sea and

Behemoth depicted their beasts engaged in acts of destruction that mirrored the

wartime bombing of London, they simultaneously suggested a city under

nuclear attack. Although Conrich has indicated that these films resembled both

the Blitz and a nuclear strike, they actually entangled these two conflicts,

appearing as a hybrid of fears from the past and for the future. The intertwining

of conventional and nuclear warfare, evident both in the 1950s creature

features and in contemporary British public debate, provided a nationally

specific inflection to interpretations of the terrifying beasts of the decadeʼs

science fiction cinema, allowing them to engage with British atomic era

anxieties through their staging of a nuclear Blitz.

! Characterising Public Debate: 1950s Britainʼs Nuclear Tomorrow

! In 1956, Queen Elizabeth II opened Calder Hall, the worldʼs first nuclear

reactor to generate sufficient quantities of energy for civilian use, near to

Seascale, a village situated on the coast of the Irish Sea in what is now

Cumbria but was then Cumberland. The United Kingdom Atomic Energy

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Authority (UKAEA) codenamed the design of the reactor PIPPA (pressured pile

for producing power and plutonium), owing to its capability of producing both

electricity for the national grid and plutonium for military purposes.35 Britainʼs

initial engagement with nuclear power thus acknowledged the potential of this

technology for terrible devastation, but simultaneously promised the utopian

dream of limitless, cheap, sustainable energy. Although many Britons harboured

anxieties about nuclear technology, as discussed above, Calder Hall served as

a reminder of the potential benefits of the atomic age. This more positive

outlook on nuclear science was bolstered during the 1950s by numerous

attempts to promote nuclear power as a safe means of both augmenting

Britainʼs post-war economic recovery and rejuvenating its failing international

significance in the post-colonial era. This section examines a number of the

ways in which nuclear technology was framed in a positive light in Britain during

the latter half of this decade, countering the previous sectionʼs focus on the

destructive potential of the bomb. It describes how nuclear technology was tied

to notions of national prosperity by a scientific and political community seeking

to rally public sentiment in the face of strong nuclear anxieties. By discussing

some of the ways in which the British imagined nuclear technology as a

gateway to a better future, this section prepares the way for the final section of

this chapter to discuss how this more positive outlook might have enabled

Britons to produce alternative readings of the 1950s creature features to those

outlined above.

! After the destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima by American atomic

bombs in 1945 and, later on, in the wake of a fire at a reactor at the Seascale

plant in 1957 that spread radioactive material across the surrounding area, the

1950s saw the emergence of a glut of public messages in Britain about how

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safe, reliable and efficient nuclear power was. Unsurprisingly, many of these

came from the burgeoning nuclear industry itself. In 1958, for example, the

UKAEA produced a short training film called Full Power (1958), aimed at

demonstrating the proper running of the Calder Hall facility to potential and

current staff.36 Despite its small, select intended audience, this film offers clues

about how the nuclear industry wished to be perceived during the late 1950s.

Full Power repeatedly stresses both the safety and the conscientious

management of the Calder Hall facility. Viewers are told that ʻnothing is left to

chanceʼ and that ʻthe highest degree of safetyʼ was assured. A series of shots

depict well-groomed men gently tinkering with wheels, cranks, dials and graphs,

all the while taking careful notes. A voiceover announces that the authorities at

the site have ʻtwo years of experienceʼ, presumably a reassuring fact in these

very early years of nuclear energy. In this way, Full Power works to mask the

dangers of nuclear power behind the image of Calder Hall as a well-managed

and secure facility.

! The UKAEA was not alone in spreading this type of message. During the

1950s, the safety of nuclear technologies was also promoted by other British

industries that similarly sought to pacify the public about their use of radiation.

An early example of this came from Unilever, which produced a magazine reel

containing three short films about different aspects of its operations. Named

simply Unilever Magazine No.1 (c.1950), this reel begins with a sequence that

examines the role of nuclear technology in bringing a variety of Unileverʼs

products to market.37 The film encourages its audience to recognise the

supposed silliness of atomic anxieties by presenting radiation in non-

threatening terms. It refers to the companyʼs scientists by the friendly moniker

ʻback room boysʼ and shows the role of irradiation in menial tasks such as

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distributing nutrients through chicken feed. It suggests that if one were afraid of

such processes then one ʻmight as well worry about the radioactivity in the dial

of your luminous watchʼ, domesticating the threat and contextualising it into the

viewerʼs everyday life. This tactic is used again when the narration announces

that the public encounter background radiation ʻevery time we buy ourselves a

pint or press another gin on that blondeʼ. Radiation is shown to be as ordinary

as a visit to the pub and as harmless as much of 1950s society saw this type of

flirtation to be. Unilever Magazine No.1 presents a world in which atomic panic

is laughably small-minded and radiation is merely a tool for making everyday life

easier. This emphasis on the beneficial qualities of nuclear technology became

a common theme in similar short advertisement films produced by various

British companies during the 1950s, such as Another Name for Power (1959),

produced for Associated Electrical Industries Ltd to describe the good that

radiation can do in the field of medicine.38

! These messages about the benefits of radiation in highly specialised

industries were supported by a series of news reports that framed Britainʼs

expanding use of nuclear technology as being of national and international

benefit. Newsreels were one medium through which this occurred. On 4th

December 1958, a British Pathé newsreel entitled Atomic Power from Britain -

Italy was released in cinemas documenting the building of ʻthe first atomic

power station in the world to be erected by one country for anotherʼ.39 According

to this film, Britain was at the cutting edge of technological innovation and, as a

result, had been asked to build a nuclear reactor in Italy. That Britain, an Allied

Power in the Second World War, was providing nuclear expertise to Italy, one of

the former belligerent Axis Powers, only thirteen years after being on opposite

sides of the most bloody conflict in human history underlined the potential for

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nuclear co-operation to help forge closer international relations. This was again

highlighted by the formation of the European Atomic Energy Community

(Euratom), an international body aimed at orchestrating nuclear power sharing

in Europe, in 1957. Though Britain was not a member of Euratom, Italy was,

and so Britain did participate to some extent in the use of atomic age

technology as a means of uniting the European continent after the Second

World War.

! The British hope that nuclear power could be used to inspire international

unity was also on display in the print media of the late 1950s. The Daily Mirror

described Calder Hall, even in the midst of a staff walk-out over safety

concerns, as ʻthe worldʼs first atom-power-for-peace plantʼ.40 This type of

phrasing gained currency in Britain around that time, most probably as a result

of the ʻthe International Atoms-for-Peace conferenceʼ in Geneva in 1958, which,

The Daily Mirror reported, saw the signing of the contracts for the Italian

reactor.41 Under the headline ʻAtoms for Peaceʼ, The Manchester Guardian

reported that ʻproceedings have formally been blessed with international

friendliness and bonhomieʼ, with only the occasional flaring up of political

rivalries.42 In 1957, The Times even reported that Prime Minister Harold

Macmillan himself had justified Britainʼs possession of nuclear weapons by

claiming ʻthat the whole purpose of the defence plans of Great Britain and her

allies can be stated in a single phrase: to prevent warʼ.43 In 1950s Britain,

nuclear technology was certainly associated with the bomb, but it also stood for

peace, international co-operation and prosperity, three key British interests in

the post-war years.

! Nuclear power was also presented as being useful in Britainʼs own

national self-interest. Britainʼs economy had been devastated by the Second

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World War. The Anglo-American Loan Agreement of 1946 saw Britain borrowing

$3.75 billion from the US to stave off the imminent threat of bankruptcy. The

sheer size of this loan, which took the form of a line of credit that Britain could

draw on, indicates the severity of the countryʼs financial crisis in the immediate

post-war years. By the 1950s, although the situation had improved and the

period referred to as ʻausterity Britainʼ had drawn to a close, the British

economy was still in a fragile state. Nuclear technologyʼs promise of limitless

energy and its potential for financial exploitation thus made it a popular source

of hope for Britainʼs economic future. Today Tomorrow (release date unspecified

but certainly between 1955 and 1959), a film produced to advertise the work of

Crossley Brothers Ltd, a manufacturer of internal combustion engines for

UKAEA nuclear power plants, demonstrates this drive towards economic growth

through nuclear power.44 Shots of technical equipment and delivery trucks

moving to and fro suggest a busy and purposeful industry, while the audience is

told that ʻthe United Kingdom, by her achievementsʼ has taken the global lead in

developing a high-tech and successful nuclear sector. Today Tomorrow taps into

national optimism about nuclear technologyʼs role in Britainʼs post-war

development by promoting Crossley Brothers Ltd, and hence nuclear

engineering, as an important factor in the restoration of national pride and

economic growth at a time when the country faced decolonisation and financial

uncertainty.

! With nuclear technology being perceived as a significant factor in the

broader success of the nation, the government itself became keen to reverse

any negative public opinion that surrounded either nuclear power or nuclear

weaponry. In March 1958, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan even went so far as

to write to an unfortunately illegible recipient that ʻI will do my best in the

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speeches I make to steady public opinionʼ about nuclear technology.45 In the

weeks that followed there seems to have been an increased focus on

redressing public sentiment in this way. As Macmillan wrote to the Chancellor of

the Duchy of Lancaster nine days later:

It is most important that we should find some way of organising and directing an
effective campaign to counter the current agitation against this countryʼs
possession of nuclear weapons...Letters to The Times are all very well, but do not
reach the middle range of people...Can we persuade some influential publicists to
write articles? Are there any reliable scientists? Or Church of England Bishops?46

This manipulation of public opinion in favour of nuclear weapons continued with

the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster identifying sympathetic ʻintellectuals,

Churchmen, scientists and othersʼ with the aim that ʻthe BBC and the

programme companies will be confidentially informed [of the need to promote

nuclear weapons] and the suggestion made that these people should be invited

to give expression to their views on sound and televisionʼ.47 Twenty days after

sending this letter, the Chancellor wrote again to the Prime Minister to confirm

that ʻthe objective [of this campaign] is a steady stream of spoken, printed and

broadcast contributionsʼ from public figures in support of Britainʼs nuclear

programme.48 The Chancellor quickly became the organisational force behind

this campaign, as revealed by Philip de Zulueta, Private Secretary for Foreign

Affairs, when he wrote to Macmillan to inform him that Lord Hailsham wanted to

discuss radioactivity in the House of Lords, but ʻI think, however, that it would be

as well for him to work closely with the Chancellor of the Duchy in organising

itʼ.49 Just as the Prime Minister had hoped, the Chancellorʼs efforts to control the

ways in which nuclear technology was discussed went some way to reversing

negative public sentiment. In May 1958, just two months after Macmillan had

voiced his concerns, the Chancellor reported to him that ʻI suspect that the

press, and maybe the country, is a little weary of the whole business of polls,

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processions and pontifical pronouncements on the hydrogen bombʼ.50 With

public apathy towards the issue of nuclear weapons on the rise, the government

campaign was succeeding.

! This was not an approach that was readily abandoned by government

officials. As late as 1965, the British authorities were involved in suppressing

material that cast a negative light on nuclear technology. Peter Watkinsʼ BBC

film, The War Game, which received a very limited cinema release in 1966

despite being originally intended for broadcast during the previous year,

depicted the likely, and deeply disturbing, consequences of a Soviet nuclear

attack on Britain. The filmʼs broadcast was delayed while governmental

approval was sought by the BBC. Watkinsʼ film was ultimately pulled from the

schedules. Though the BBC has stood by its claim that, as an independent

operation, the decision not to broadcast the film was its own, political influence

is widely blamed for the effectual ban that the film received.51 Indeed, Patrick

Murphy provides compelling new documentary evidence that government

officials were directly responsible for suppressing the film in his short feature,

The War Game - The Controversy (2003).52 The desire to limit the availability of

material that depicted nuclear technology in an unfavourable light, evident in the

Prime Ministerʼs papers from the late 1950s, persisted through to the

mid-1960s.

! The 1950s was an era of great contrast in Britainʼs outlook on nuclear

technology. While many feared an oncoming nuclear war, messages about the

benefits of the atomic age were also prominent in public debate. Those with a

vested interest in the success of Britainʼs nuclear programme, both in industry

and government, made the case that nuclear technology represented Britainʼs

best hope for economic prosperity and peace. The public were told that nuclear

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power was safe and reliable, that nuclear co-operation could unite old enemies

and prevent future conflicts and that radiation could usher in a new age of more

efficient medical and industrial practices. There is little question that Britons

suffered from anxieties about the potential use of nuclear weapons during the

1950s, but these fears were at least partially counterbalanced by an array of

positive messages about nuclear technology itself.

! Reading 1950s Creature Features: Nuclear Optimism

! Just as many 1950s Britons simultaneously feared nuclear weapons and

found hope in nuclear power, so too did the creature features that they watched

present the duality of the atomic age. Critics have long noted a bipolar outlook

on nuclear technology in 1950s science fiction cinema. This dates back to

Susan Sontagʼs seminal essay, ʻThe Imagination of Disasterʼ, in which she

observed that ʻthe standard message [of these films] is the one about the

proper, or humane, uses of science, versus the mad, obsessional use of

scienceʼ.53 M. Keith Booker similarly observes that many 1950s science fiction

films made an ʻattempt...to allay fears of nuclear and associated issues

(particularly radiation)ʼ, even though he ultimately believes that this attempt

failed.54 Peter Biskind is perhaps most outspoken in this regard when he writes

that ʻcentrist films [such as It Came from Beneath the Sea]...are not primarily

worried about the Bomb; they loved the Bomb, or at least the technology that

made it possibleʼ.55 For Biskind, in these films, ʻwhere science caused the

problem, science often solved it tooʼ.56 1950s science fiction films, and the

creature features in particular, might have encouraged British fears of a nuclear

Blitz, but, as Sontag, Booker and Biskind suggest, they were also able to

present a more positive image of nuclear technology. This section will

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demonstrate how such readings of It Came from Beneath the Sea and

Behemoth the Sea Monster might have been especially relevant in Britain, a

country whose self-image and economic fortunes were being tied in public

debate to its fledgling nuclear industry.

! Nuclear technology is seemingly a double-edged sword in It Came from

Beneath the Sea. As Biskind notes, ʻthe giant octopus in question is spawned

by nuclear testing, but it is also destroyed in the end by an atomic torpedoʼ.57

He becomes more optimistic about the presentation of nuclear technology in

1950s science fiction cinema later in his argument when he claims that, in

America, ʻthe prestige of science was so high by the beginning of the fifties that

the mad scientists of thirties and forties films...were no longer mad, but, on the

contrary, rather pleased with the way things had turned outʼ.58 However, what

Biskind optimistically sees as the redemption of science and scientists in 1950s

science fiction, particularly in Beneath the Sea, does not sit comfortably with

readings of this film produced by other scholars who have tended to focus more

heavily on the monsterʼs relationship to nuclear testing. Ernest Giglio has

described the creature in Beneath the Sea as ʻa radioactive octopus that is

transformed into a carnivorous giantʼ.59 Daniel Wojcik uses Beneath the Sea as

an example of a film in which ʻnuclear bombs and radioactivity inevitably result

in the creation of monsters, mutants, and threats to society and individual

existenceʼ.60 While Biskind focuses principally on the redemption of nuclear

science implied by the filmʼs ending, these authors ignore that aspect of the film

and attempt to associate nuclear technology with the monstrosity of the beast.

However, neither Wojcik nor Giglio provide a close reading of the film to support

their arguments and their belief that the octopus monster represents the

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dangers of the atomic age can be destabilised through an examination of the

ways in which Beneath the Sea characterises its creature.

! Beneath the Seaʼs gigantic octopus is much less strongly associated with

the monstrosity of nuclear weaponry than, for example, the lizard beast of

Behemoth. The behemoth is saturated with nuclear radiation and its principal

form of attack resembles a nuclear explosion. During certain sequences a

strange, electronic, pulsing noise is heard, faint concentric white circles are

superimposed over the image of the monsterʼs victim, the screen rapidly fades

to a bright white and the film either cuts away, implying the death of the victim,

an explosion occurs or the white screen is replaced with an horrific image of the

victim with serious burns. In one particularly disturbing sequence a group of

soldiers is framed by the concentric circles, the screen fades to white and, when

the image of the soldiers returns, it has been replaced by a hand-drawn picture

of them with their faces charred beyond recognition, their bones exposed and

their guns melted. The depiction of a white flash that causes horrendous burns

to human victims recalls the effects of a nuclear explosion, in which both the

initial heat blast, which is accompanied by a blinding flash of light, and the

lingering radiation can, amongst many other awful effects, burn human skin.

The behemoth is not merely released upon the world as a result of atomic

testing, but is an embodiment of nuclear weapons themselves. Even its blood is

so radioactive that it poses a hazard to human life. By way of contrast, Beneath

the Seaʼs octopus does not draw power or abilities from its radioactivity and was

both monstrous and colossal before it was contaminated with nuclear material.

As such, this sea creature displays a very different relationship to nuclear

science than the behemoth and cannot be said to embody the threat of

radiation to the same extent.

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! These differing relationships to nuclear technology are also evident in the

ways in which these creatures emerge into the human world. The behemoth

was forced from its former habitat by nearby nuclear explosions from which it

absorbed radiation, clearly framing the destruction that it causes as a direct

consequence of these nuclear tests. However, the emergence of the octopus in

Beneath the Sea has only an indirect relationship with nuclear material. The

creature, as Dr. Lesley Joyce explains in the film, lived in a deep underwater

trench many miles away from nuclear test sites. Winds brought the radiation to

the waters around its lair, but the creature remained unaffected until it ate fish

which had become radioactive. Even then the radiation had no particular

biological consequence for the octopus, which was already of monstrous

proportions. The local fish, however, could sense radioactivity and so were now

able to avoid the colossal predator much more effectively. Without a food

supply, the octopus was forced from its lair and began preying on humans.

Although radiation certainly plays a role in precipitating the octopusʼ attack on

San Francisco, the connection between the beast and the nuclear material is

tangential, especially in comparison to Behemoth. It is, therefore, problematic

for Giglio to characterise the creature in Beneath the Sea as ʻa radioactive

octopus that is transformed into a carnivorous giantʼ.61 Indeed, no

transformation takes place, be it initiated through radioactivity or otherwise.

Although the octopusʼs rampage in Beneath the Sea certainly bears an

iconographic similarity to the way in which many Britons imagined a nuclear

attack, as outlined in the first half of this chapter, the beast itself remains more

distant from the monstrosity of radioactivity than commentators such as Giglio

have claimed.62

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! Furthermore, Beneath the Sea is imbued with an optimism about the

nuclear age that mirrors the optimism expressed in British public debate during

the 1950s. For example, this film contains a number of sequences which

valorise the innovative spirit of the nuclear industry. The film opens with a short

montage sequence depicting the launch of a nuclear submarine. The vessel

itself is shown draped in flags and surrounded by cheering crowds. It is

described by a voiceover as ʻmanʼs greatest weapon of the seas...Her engines

were to be a miracle of speed and power, her sides strong enough to withstand

any blow, her armament and firepower of greater force than the worst enemy

she might encounterʼ. Later, inside the nuclear submarine, the captain mentions

that, far from the restricted diet one might imagine being available on such a

craft in the 1950s, his breakfast consisted of ʻorange juice, bacon, eggs, coffeeʼ.

He suggests that the nuclear submarine is as easy to control as ʻan automatic

elevatorʼ and that all his crew have to do ʻis eat and sleep, press a button when

there is some work to be doneʼ. The craft is described as ʻroomyʼ and the

conning tower is even compared to a ballroom. The audience is also told that

the submarine had ʻthree world records in the bag on our first shakedown

cruiseʼ. Soft, Hawaiian music plays throughout the craft while the crew idly play

cards. As one man puts it, ʻall we need is some champagne and dancing girlsʼ.

In Beneath the Sea, the nuclear submarine is a submergible atomic era

paradise, housing whatever its crew might desire in spacious and comfortable

surroundings. Nuclear technology is thus presented as a great benefit to

humankind, capable of transforming even the harshest of environments into a

carefree haven.

! Even after the octopus attacks the nuclear submarine and exposure to

radiation becomes likely, this is not presented as a great danger. One crew

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member informs the captain that he just got married and was ʻcounting on a

familyʼ, but he had heard that radiation, such as that leaking into the submarine

around them, ʻmakes it so you canʼt have childrenʼ. The captainʼs response is a

not overly concerned promise to have them out of the compartment as soon as

is practical. There is no great rush to evacuate in the face of the radiation and

the clicking of the onboard Geiger counter goes unnoticed for some time before

this exchange. Similarly, when it becomes clear that part of the hull of the

submarine has become radioactive, the divers sent to examine it are not

instantly recalled from the water, but are rather advised to ʻstay clearʼ of that

particular section during their investigation. Radiation is dangerous, the film

admits, but not pressingly so. If one is sensible and is only exposed to it in

reasonable quantities, there is no need to be anxious. Beneath the Sea thus

mirrors the claims of British promotional films by companies such as Unilever,

which tamed the threat of radiation by stressing its presence in the daily lives of

ordinary Britons.

! Beneath the Sea was thus available for interpretation by those Britons

who were well versed in the optimism of the atomic age, as so many were

during the 1950s, as a reaffirmation of the faith that they had placed in Britainʼs

nuclear future. It dismissed fears of radiation while depicting the utopian ideal of

a nuclear tomorrow, much as the British government sought to do. Its creature,

terrifying though it might have been, was not an unequivocal embodiment of

nuclear technology and could easily have been perceived as simply one of

natureʼs monsters of the deep. The filmʼs presentation of humankind battling

against a dangerous adversary and only achieving victory by utilising the

wonders of the atomic age, such as a nuclear torpedo, validated the countryʼs

embracement of nuclear technology.

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# As noted above, Behemoth is generally a much less optimistic film than

Beneath the Sea in its presentation of nuclear technology. In this regard, it is

particularly difficult to look past the beastʼs use of radiation as a weapon.

However, that is not to say that Britons found nothing in this film to help them to

justify their nationʼs hopes for the atomic age. For all its focus on the harm that

the nuclear behemoth does, the filmʼs ending ultimately mirrors that of Beneath

the Sea, and indeed several other 1950s creature features such as The Beast

from 20,000 Fathoms, of which Behemoth was an unofficial remake, by showing

nuclear technology to be the only force capable of saving humankind. As the

behemoth makes its way through the streets of London, the authorities charge

scientists with the production of a radioactive isotope that will bury a torpedo

within the creature, thereby containing the danger that would result from spilling

its blood. Biskindʼs claim that ʻwhere science caused the problem, science often

solved it tooʼ is certainly true of Behemoth.63 Although it would be difficult to

class this as one of Biskindʼs ʻcentrist filmsʼ, which he claims ʻare not primarily

worried about the Bomb; they loved the Bombʼ, it certainly shares with them

their love of ʻthe technology that made [the bomb] possibleʼ.64 It is, after all, not

a nuclear bomb but a torpedo containing a nuclear isotope that kills the beast.

Perhaps Behemoth is best understood as a film that is cautious about nuclear

weaponry, but which is willing to embrace the use of other nuclear technologies

for defensive or peaceful ends. One could even find in it the suggestion that,

once the evil of nuclear weapons had been created, embodied by the behemoth

itself, society had a responsibility to use the science of the atomic age in order

to avoid the type of carnage that the film depicts. Ultimately, Behemothʼs

sudden embracement of nuclear technology at its climax is extremely rushed

and comes too late in the film to offer any sustained commentary, but if Britons

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were willing to look for it then the suggestion that radiation might be a boon to

humankind could certainly be found in this filmʼs ending.

! The notion presented in the first half of this chapter, that some of the

horror of the atomic age was present in It Came from Beneath the Sea and

Behemoth the Sea Monster, was predicated on the suggestion that the

sequences that depicted the attack of the monster resembled a form of nuclear

strike. Elsewhere, however, these films were able to display a positive attitude

towards nuclear technology, albeit to different degrees, that would have struck a

chord with many 1950s Britons. Indeed, in his preview of When Worlds Collide

(1951), published in the British weekly film magazine Picturegoer, David

Marlowe went as far as to claim that he was ʻgetting sort of tired of doom -

whether weʼre to have it from atom bombs or planetsʼ.65 Marlowe, like many of

his British readers, might consequently have found much to praise in Behemoth

and Beneath the Sea. Atomic anxieties can certainly be read into in both films,

but this is not the only attitude towards nuclear technology that Britons would

have recognised in these creature features.

! Conclusion

! The late 1950s was a time of instability and confusion in Britainʼs outlook

on nuclear technology. Looking back to the recent past, many Britons feared

that a nuclear war would return the horrors of the Blitz to their lives alongside

the terrifying new dangers of radiation. Looking to the future, however, other

Britons imagined a world of peace and prosperity ushered in by Britainʼs

engagement with nuclear technology. Calder Hall became a suitable metaphor

for the duality of the British approach to this subject, producing both abundant

electricity for civilian consumption and radioactive materials capable of being

206
used in a nuclear weapon. Both pro- and anti-nuclear camps had strong

supporters and detractors and the national debate became a conflicted arena in

which the battle for public opinion was waged. Nuclear anxieties were rife, but

that did not necessarily mean that Britons were incapable of seeing the benefits

that embracing the atomic age could bring.

! Into this confusion emerged It Came from Beneath the Sea and

Behemoth the Sea Monster, just as conflicted in their attitudes towards nuclear

technology as were the British audiences who watched them. Both films tapped

into the British public imagination, perhaps unwittingly, by presenting attacks on

urban areas that recalled and intertwined the home front of the Second World

War and atomic era British civil defence. This meant that the monsters of these

films were available for interpretation in Britain as a type of nuclear Blitz.

Behemoth was particularly significant in this regard since it imbued its beast

with devastating nuclear powers and showed it demolishing London as the Nazi

bombers had in the previous decade. Simultaneously, however, both films also

signalled the positive aspects of Britainʼs nuclear project. Beneath the Sea was

more adept at this since it not only refused to allow its creature to be an

unproblematic embodiment of radiation, but it also went to some lengths to

depict nuclear technology as an improvement in the lives of ordinary human

beings, such as those aboard its nuclear submarine. Both films have endings in

which nuclear science saves humankind. This allowed them to appear to justify

Britainʼs continued investment in nuclear research and technology despite the

dangers of the nuclear bomb. Each film can, when seen as part of 1950s British

public debate, reveal a variety of possible interpretations that were available to

British viewers. These were films that were capable of both supporting and

207
challenging either side of Britainʼs nuclear debate. As such, they provided a

forum for Britons to reflect on their countryʼs ever advancing nuclear agenda.

! The relationship between 1950s science fictionʼs creature features and

the British outlook on nuclear technology is both complex and vital to our

understanding of how these films came to hold meaning in that country. They

were available for interpretation in unique ways in Britain, both because of the

specific set of debates about nuclear technology that surrounded them and

because of the recent memories of the British home front of the Second World

War that they evoked. As noted above, Americans might also have seen

similarities between the 1950s creature features, the Blitz and the prospect of a

nuclear attack, but their understanding of these relationships was not informed

by a history of living under Nazi bombardment, a sense of national optimism at

the opening of Calder Hall, fears about Britainʼs unstable economic future or

any of the other issues mentioned above. This chapter has consequently

demonstrated that, even when understood in terms of topics that were of deep

concern across the west, such as nuclear technology, the British reception of

1950s creature features was unique since it was informed by debates and

memories that were specific to that country.

Notes
1Conrich, Ian. 1999. ʻTrashing London: The British Colossal Creature Film and Fantasies of
Mass Destructionʼ, in Hunter (1999b: 88-98). p.88.
2Hendershot, Cyndy. 1999. Paranoia, the Bomb and 1950s Science Fiction Films. Bowling
Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. p.75.
3Matthews, Melvin E. 2007. Hostile Aliens, Hollywood and Todayʼs Headlines. New York, NY:
Algora. p.81.
4Nama, Adilifu. 2009. Black Space: Imagining Race in Science Fiction Film. Austin, TX:
University of Texas Press. p.14.
5Davis, Tracy C. 2007. States of Emergency: Cold War Nuclear Civil Defense. Durham, NC:
Duke University Press. p.15.
6 Conrich. ʻTrashing Londonʼ. pp.96-97.
208
7Hendershot, Cyndy. 1999. Paranoia, the Bomb and 1950s Science Fiction Films. Bowling
Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. p.113.
8 Ibid.
9 Anon. 23 February 1955. ʻAtomic Test in Nevadaʼ, The Manchester Guardian. p.7.
10 Anon. 22 May 1959. ʻCanal Digging by Nuclear Explosionsʼ, The Times. p.10.
11 Cassandra. 3 June 1957. ʻLike an Oil Painting from Hellʼ, The Daily Mirror. p.3.
12Anon. 19 December 1959. ʻTest Explosion in Old Lead Mineʼ, The Manchester Guardian. p.
10.
13 Davis. States of Emergency. p.159.
14Kadt, Emanuel J. de. 1964. British Defence Policy and Nuclear War. London: Frank Cass &
Co. p.92.
15 Ibid.
16County Borough of Preston Civil Defence Exercise “Prestonian”. 1959. Preston Borough
Police. North West Film Archive, film no. 3160. UK.
17 CSV Action Desk Leicester. 26 August 2005. ʻMy Lancashire Warʼ, BBC - WW2 Peopleʼs War.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/85/a5330585.shtml. Retrieved 6 April 2009.
18 Anon. 11 July 1957. ʻObstacles to Unityʼ, The Times. p.6.
19 Anon. 23 July 1958. ʻAerial Frontiers of 15,000 Milesʼ, The Times. p.9.
20 Anon. 27 April 1959. ʻComing of Ageʼ, The Times. p.13.
21Shaw, Tony. 2006. British Cinema and the Cold War: The State, Propaganda and Consensus.
London: I.B. Tauris. p.133.
22Connor, William. 18 January 1955. ʻThe Peril We Faceʼ, William Connor, The Daily Mirror. pp.
8-9.
23 Anon. 17 January 1959. ʻEffect of Having Nuclear Armsʼ, The Times. p.10.
24 Anon. 10 March 1958. ʻTonightʼs Viewʼ, The Daily Mirror. p.16.
25 Ibid.
26Newman, Kim. 1996. ʻAre You Now or Have You Ever Been...?ʼ, in Jaworzyn (1996: 72-86). p.
79.
27 Conrich. ʻTrashing Londonʼ. p.97.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid. p.88.
30 Hendershot. Paranoia, the Bomb and 1950s Science Fiction Films. p.124.
31 Conrich. ʻTrashing Londonʼ. p.88.
32 Ibid. p.97.
33 Ibid. p.88.
34
Anon. 23 December 1953. ʻSevere Criticisms of Civil Defence Organisationʼ, The Manchester
Guardian. p.2

209
35 Openshaw, Stan. 1986. Nuclear Power. London: Routledge. p.88.
36Full Power. 1958. United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and Ace Films. North West Film
Archive, film no. 467. UK.
37Unilever Magazine No.1. c.1950. Editorial Film Production and Lintas. North West Film
Archive, film no. 324. UK.
38
Another Name for Power. 1959. RHR in association with the Film Producers Guild. North
West Film Archive, film no. 2791. UK.
39Atomic Power from Britain – Italy. 4 December 1958. Pathé News and Incom. Issue no.
58/97. UK and Italy.
40 Checkley, John. 17 October 1957. ʻWalk-Out at Atom Plantʼ, The Daily Mail. p.1.
41 Anon. 1 September 1958. ʻ£10m A-Order for Britainʼ, The Daily Mirror. p.20.
42 Anon. 13 September 1958. ʻAtoms for Peaceʼ, The Manchester Guardian. p.4.
43 Anon. 21 June 1957. ʻMr. Macmillan Explains Views on Hydrogen Bombʼ, The Times. p.7.
44
Today Tomorrow. Unspecified date between 1955 and 1959. National Film Agency in
Manchester. North West Film Archive, film no. 3854. UK.
45 Macmillan, Harold. 15 March 1958. Letter addressed to illegible recipient. National Archives
file PREM 11/2778.
46Macmillan, Harold. 24 March 1958. Letter addressed to the Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster. National Archives file PREM 11/2778.
47
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. 2 April 1958. Letter addressed to Prime Minister Harold
Macmillan. National Archives file PREM 11/2778.
48 Ibid.
49Zulueta, Philip de. 24 April 1958. Letter addressed to Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.
National Archives file PREM 11/2778.
50
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. 7 May 1958. Letter addressed to Prime Minister Harold
Macmillan. National Archives file PREM 11/2778.
51
Duguid, Mark. No date provided. ʻWar Game, The (1966)ʼ, BFI Screenonline. http://
www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/438638/index.html. Retrieved 31 March 2008.
52 ʻThe War Game - The Controversyʼ, Dir. Patrick Murphy. The War Game, Dir. Peter Watkins,
Produced by Peter Watkins, 1965. DVD, BFI, 2003.
53Sontag, Susan. 2004. ʻThe Imagination of Disasterʼ, in Redmond (2004: 40-47). (Originally
published in 1965). p.43.
54Booker, M. Keith. 2001. Monsters, Mushroom Clouds and the Cold War: American Science
Fiction and the Roots of Postmodernism, 1946-1964. Westport, CT: Greenwood. p.106.
55 Biskind, Peter. 2001. Seeing is Believing. London: Bloomsbury. p.107.
56 Ibid. p.104.
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid.
59
Giglio, Ernest. 2007. Hereʼs Looking at You: Hollywood, Film and Politics. 2nd edn. New York,
NY: Peter Lang Publishing. p.227.

210
60 Wojcik, Daniel. 1997. The End of the World as We Know It: Faith, Fatalism, and Apocalypse
in America. New York, NY: New York University Press. p.110.
61 Giglio. Hereʼs Looking at You. p.227.
62 Ibid.
63 Biskind. Seeing is Believing. p.104.
64 Ibid. p.107.
65 Marlowe, David. 29 July 1951. ʻThis Film is the End!ʼ, Picturegoer. p.7.

211
 Chapter Five: Imperial Decline, American Invasion and Technology

in 1950s Science Fiction Cinema

! Introduction

! As the previous chapter noted, nuclear power and weaponry certainly

played a role in shaping the public perception of science and technology in

1950s Britain, but this was also the decade in which a vaccine against polio was

discovered and ownership of television sets boomed. Britainʼs nuclear hopes

and fears were only one aspect of a much broader public debate about the

nature, status and use of science that took a number of different forms. Queen

Elizabeth II, for example, drew public attention to the variety of inventions and

advances that were made during this period in her annual Christmas Day

broadcasts. She made eight of these speeches during the 1950s, five of which

mentioned science or technology. Her comments were often very general, as in

1954 when she claimed to be ʻamazed by the spectacular discoveries in

scientific knowledge, which should bring comfort and leisure to millionsʼ.1 She

did occasionally make what might be interpreted as veiled warnings about the

dangers of nuclear technology, notably in 1955 when she argued that ʻyear by

year, new secrets of nature are being revealed to us by science - secrets of

immense power, for good or evil, according to their use. These discoveries

resolve some of our problems, but they make others deeper and more

immediateʼ. However, she also singled out other areas of technological

achievement, for example in her praise of innovations in telecommunications

and the media in 1958, when she noted that her voice was ʻcarried between us

upon the invisible wings of twentieth-century scienceʼ. Of course, the Queenʼs

comments alone cannot be used to characterise the nature of British public

212
debate about science during the 1950s, but they do suggest that these

discussions were about more than just nuclear technology.

! The arguments presented below similarly extend my exploration of

British interpretations of science in 1950s science fiction cinema beyond the

previous chapterʼs interest in atomic power and the nuclear bomb. In this

regard, my approach is informed by the work of Mark Jancovich and Bonnie

Noonan, who have both suggested that the presentation of science in 1950s US

science fiction cinema allowed these films to intersect with other, largely

unconnected, public debates. For Noonan, ʻthe emergence of the modern

American science fiction film in 1950 combined with the situation of post-World

War II women in science to create a genre explicitly amenable to exploring the

tension between a womanʼs place in the home and her place in the work force,

particularly in the fields of scienceʼ.2 Although Noonan focuses on female

scientists, this claim suggests that science in science fiction cinema might also

have been able to give voice to seemingly unassociated issues surrounding the

domestic and working lives of women in many other sectors. Jancovich also

exposes this flexibility of science as a means of addressing other debates in his

examination of the genreʼs monsters as ʻproducts of scienceʼ.3 For Jancovich,

the science that creates these monsters is used to discuss ʻan anxiety about

humanityʼs role within the cosmosʼ and ʻthe end of American isolationism and

the nationʼs growing awareness of its place within a complex and often hostile

world orderʼ.4 Jancovichʼs work shares Noonanʼs belief that the ways in which

science is treated by these films might have provided commentary on issues to

which science itself was only loosely connected.

! Following this lead, this chapter explores how a range of prominent

British public debates intersected with the presentation of science in 1950s

213
science fiction films, thereby shaping their interpretation. The first half of this

chapter focuses on the perceived political consequences of the 1956 Suez

crisis. This international incident, which saw Britain forced to withdraw from a

military conflict in Egypt at the behest of the international community, led by

America, called Britainʼs status as a global power into question. The role of the

United States in Britainʼs humiliation served to reinforce British anxieties about

American influence at home and in Europe. At the same time, science fiction

films, such as the case study films examined in this chapter, Fiend Without a

Face (1958) and Earth vs the Flying Saucers (1956), were presenting stories in

which science became one means of comparing the strength and success of

different nations. This depiction of science allowed Britons to explore their

weakened international position after Suez by comparing Britainʼs scientific

capabilities, as presented on the screen, with those of America.

! The second half of the chapter addresses a topic that is more obviously

related to science itself, namely the increased presence of technology in British

society during the 1950s. As such, the focus turns to the relationship between

science as it appeared on screen and science as it manifested in the day to day

lives and imaginations of British cinema-goers. This section identifies in British

public debate a tendency to see new technologies of recording and

broadcasting as harbingers of an anticipated scientific revolution that would

transform the nation. As a result, I argue that by deploying new cinematic

technologies such as 3D and CinemaScope, science fiction films were able to

present themselves as scientifically mediated experiences for 1950s Britons

and so were perceived to provide a glimpse of the exciting advances that new

technologies would bring.5

214
! This format is of course a little different from that adopted by previous

chapters, since the two halves of this chapter do not explore opposing

viewpoints on a single topic, but rather show how two distinct topics framed

science in 1950s science fiction cinema. The aim of accounting for different

outlooks in previous chapters was to represent the breadth of readings that

Britons might have made of these films. This same goal is achieved here by

highlighting the variety of public debates that science was able to intersect with

through its depiction in the genre and the range of readings of these films that

might consequently have been produced. As such, although the format of this

chapter differs slightly from those that have preceded it, it still achieves the

same goals. It also fulfils the ambition of this thesis to demonstrate the

existence of a distinct British reception history of 1950s science fiction cinema

by showing that, in many of these films, science was able to take on particular

significance in relation to a range of other British concerns. The ways in which

these issues related to science fiction cinema, outlined below, would not have

been repeated in quite the same form in other national contexts of reception

because they rely on the specific nature of 1950s British public debate.

Consequently, the readings discussed in this chapter represent a distinctive

British response to these films that could have been obscured by the

globalisation of their American interpretations.

! Characterising Public Debate: Britain and America After Suez

! Historian Saki Dockrill has claimed that in the late nineteenth century

ʻBritain was...endowed with the power to command the worldʼ through its global

Empire.6 Covering almost a quarter of the globe, encompassing a quarter of its

population and spanning every continent, at its height the British Empire was a

215
prominent and often dominant force in international relations. By the end of the

1950s, however, this influence was in drastic decline and Britain was often seen

as powerful not because of its own resources and capabilities but because of its

relationship with America. In Dockrillʼs terms, ʻBritainʼs relations with the United

States became an important barometer for the measurement of Britainʼs global

standingʼ.7 The balance of power in the world had shifted and, as Britainʼs

colonies were gradually granted their freedom and the nationʼs global influence

ebbed away, America and the USSR took increasingly dominant roles in

international affairs. As Dockrillʼs argument suggests, by the 1950s Britain was

no longer seen as a superpower in its own right but as a key ally of the United

States.

! 1956 is often cited as a significant year in Britainʼs post-war decline. This

was the year that Britain and France, in collusion with Israel, conducted a brief

and ultimately disastrous military operation to regain control of Egyptʼs recently

nationalised Suez Canal. The Israelis agreed to attack Egyptian territory in late

October, allowing the European partners to enter the country under the

pretence of separating the two sides. Once in Egypt, the French and British

claimed custody of the canal, a vital shipping route that served as an artery

between Britain and its remaining colonies. The military action was initially a

success, but the political fallout had serious consequences for Britainʼs

international standing.

! On 2nd November, the United Nations adopted General Assembly

Resolution 997, drafted by the United States, demanding the withdrawal of all

troops, the reopening of the canal and an immediate ceasefire.8 The Americans,

unwilling to support their European allies, also blocked British attempts to

access the International Monetary Fund to support the nation through the

216
conflict.9 This was a particularly acute problem since the closure of the canal

during the hostilities had restricted Britainʼs supply of oil. This situation was

further hampered by a Saudi Arabian oil embargo against Britain and France

and by American threats to sell a portion of its Sterling Bond holdings,

potentially forcing the devaluation of the pound and endangering Britainʼs ability

to import food and energy. Sanctions were never enacted against Britain by the

UN or the US, but, as Keith Kyle has observed, ʻthe mere talk of them in the

former and the refusal of the latter to respond instantly to Britainʼs urgent

currency requirements were enoughʼ to force Britainʼs hand.10 Britain bowed to

the international communityʼs demands and announced a ceasefire and the

withdrawal of its forces. Britain, once ʻendowed with the power to command the

worldʼ, had instead been censured and humiliated.11 A. J. Stockwell argues that

ʻBritainʼs leadership of the Commonwealth was gravely damaged, and it

became “Enemy Number One” at the United Nationsʼ.12 With this failed attempt

to enact its will abroad, Britainʼs diminishing significance on the global stage

became clear, especially in comparison to the show of diplomatic power that the

United States had used to restrain its ally.

! Alongside this international condemnation, Britainʼs military action also

received significant domestic criticism. David L. Rousseau has observed that

the British were ʻsplit on the use of forceʼ, referring to an opinion poll that found

ʻ48 percent supporting [the military action], 32 percent opposing, and 20 percent

undecidedʼ.13 Stockwell has described this as a time when ʻthe curtain dropped

on the age of deferenceʼ and indeed much public anger was expressed against

the nationʼs leaders in the letters pages of Britainʼs newspapers.14 On 6th

November, for example, The Manchester Guardian published a selection of

letters about the crisis, which claimed:

217
 More than five hundred further letters from our readers dealing with the
Governmentʼs action in the Middle East have been received during the week-end.
The total is now approaching a thousand. The proportion against the Government
(and in support of the views expressed in our leading articles on the crisis) had
remained fairly consistent in each postal delivery at about eight to one.15

Although some bias is inherent in this summary, since Guardian readers were

likely to have selected a newspaper that shared their politics, this does suggest

something of the domestic tensions and uncertainties that surrounded Britainʼs

role in Suez.

! Public anger was often matched by criticism in the press and, as The

Manchester Guardian suggests, some British newspapers took a strong stance

against military intervention in Suez. Tony Shaw notes that, ʻdespite the

enormous moral and political pressure for it to toe the government line whilst

the country was at war, the press had...faithfully reflected public opinion...[T]he

press...articulated the publicʼs fundamental misgivingsʼ about the use of force in

Egypt.16 One such article, appearing in The Times less than a week after Prime

Minister Anthony Eden announced the withdrawal of British troops, reported that

Aneurin Bevan, the MP for Ebbw Vale, believed that Britons were ʻdishonoured

all over the worldʼ as a result of Suez and that ʻit had looked as though some of

the nations in the Commonwealth would leave itʼ as a consequence.17 As a

member of the Labour Party, Bevan was sitting on the opposition benches when

Britain entered Egypt, so perhaps his criticism was to be expected, but by giving

his strident rhetoric a public platform, and indeed by adopting a similarly critical

tone to that of The Manchester Guardian in its general reporting of the Suez

conflict, The Times helped to make visible the domestic crisis of faith in Britainʼs

world role after Suez.

! Not only did Suez undermine Britainʼs global standing and self-

confidence, it also revealed what A. J. Stockwell has described as ʻBritainʼs

218
incapacity to act without American approvalʼ.18 This reinvigorated British

anxieties about US influence in Europe that had existed since the Second World

War. Historian George Henry Bennettʼs description of Operation Bolero, the

planned buildup of 1,345,000 American military personnel in Britain in 1944, as

ʻthe American occupation of Britainʼ reflects sentiments expressed by many

Britons during the 1940s.19 As Wendy Webster notes, anxieties about the

American presence in Britain during the Second World War were often given

voice as concerns about resultant sexual relationships ʻbetween British women

and American menʼ.20 The comedy inherent in the most famous British

description of American GIs, that they were ʻoverpaid, oversexed and over

hereʼ, masked real concern about the presence of large numbers of American

men in British towns and cities, especially while British men were away fighting

in Europe.

! During the period between the end of the war and the Suez Crisis there

remained a perceptible unease about the extent of American influence in

Britain. The nationʼs newspapers, for example, often referred to American

entertainment or sports personnel in Europe with tongue-in-cheek insincerity as

an ʻAmerican invasionʼ. The Daily Mirror in particular made use of this phrase

throughout the early 1950s. In terms of cinema, it observed that ʻanother

American invasion is on the way. Several leading Hollywood stars are coming to

Britain during [the Festival of Britain]...to play in big-scale Anglo-American film

productionsʼ.21 In 1950, this paper examined an historical precedent for this type

of cultural intrusion, arguing that ʻthe American invasion of Parisʼ had once

taken the form of ʻvisits by [jazz musicians] Sidney Bechet in 1925, and later by

Mezz Mezzrow and Dave Toughʼ.22 The 1950s and early 1960s saw a similar

musical invasion of the French capital with Gene Kelly starring in the 1951 US

219
song and dance film An American in Paris, the popular Paris Blues (1961)

depicting American jazz musicians living in the city and renowned American jazz

musician Miles Davis recording the score for Louis Malleʼs Ascenseur pour

l'échafaud (1958, but released in Britain as Lift to the Scaffold in 1960 and in

America as Elevator to the Gallows in 1961). In sport, under the headline

ʻAmerican Invasionʼ, the Mirror reported that ʻseven United States golfers...have

left by air to compete in the British Amateur Golf Tournament at St Andrews,

Scotlandʼ.23 This newspaper even became concerned about the traditional

British variety show, reporting that ʻthe great 1951 American invasion of British

variety begins in March with the arrival of one of the zaniest characters in the

music business - Red Ingle, the man who introduced his band as “the most

obnoxious in America”ʼ.24 The Mirrorʼs repeated use of the term ʻAmerican

invasionʼ was perhaps the most obvious manifestation of concerns about US

influence in Europe, but The Observer was equally anxious when it reported

that the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an arts organisation later shown to

have been funded by Americaʼs Central Intelligence Agency as an anti-

communist tool, had put on a festival in Paris. Despite its French location, The

Observer claimed:

The show is very much an American one, financed by American money, run largely
by American organisers, attended, it would seem, largely by American audiences,
and in the context of the cold war it all looks to the hypersensitive and politically
minded French like another American “invasion.” There have been gibes about
“Nato culture,” “dollar imperialism” in a cultural disguise, and so on.25

As these articles demonstrate, American influence in Europe was seen as

problematic by certain quarters of the British press in the pre-Suez 1950s.

! After Suez these pre-existing anxieties intensified. They continued to be

framed as cultural criticism, as in The Manchester Guardianʼs unease about ʻthe

number of films produced in this country which are not only financed by

220
American controlled companies but are also made by American producers and

directors with American actors playing the leading partsʼ, but they also began to

manifest as economic and political concerns.26 Similarly, articles in British

newspapers presented the US as a land of plenty benefiting from and working

to maintain Britainʼs relative deprivation. This became particularly apparent in

January 1957, when the Texas Railroad Commission refused to increase crude

oil production, consequently raising prices in Britain and profits in America. The

Manchester Guardian reported this under the sub-heading ʻNo sinister motive in

refusing to step up oil output?ʼ, with the question mark insinuating that perhaps

Britons were being exploited.27 This suggestion became more explicit when the

article warned that events in Texas ʻcould come to be interpreted in Britain as a

plot to squeeze dollars out of suffering Europeansʼ.28 Americaʼs oil wealth

became a frequent bone of contention, such as in January 1957 when it was

reported that the United States was enjoying a good financial return on its fuel

sales, while in Britain ʻto maintain the petrol ration and our fuel-oil supplies at

their present levelʼ until May of that year would cost $350 million.29 This

perception that Americaʼs financial success was to Britainʼs detriment was

further underlined in 1958, when The Times highlighted the ʻlosses to Britain of

valuable research workersʼ who were tempted to America by large salaries that

ʻwere most attractive, and were made to people that Britain could not afford to

loseʼ.30 Across different sections of the economy, British suffering was

presented as the cost of American success. Even something as innocuous as

soup was seen as a potential site of besiegement by invading American

companies. In 1959, The Observer reported:

It began with the invasion of Britain by Campbellʼs Soups, which belongs to an

immense American company of the same name, with sales of $500 million a year.
A year ago they stormed into Aberdeen with the provocative slogan “Campbellʼs

221
 are coming.” From there they launched out over the rest of Scotland. And this
autumn...they have started the conquest of the rest of the country.31

Phrases such as ʻstormed into Aberdeenʻ and ʻthe conquest of the rest of the

countryʼ framed this product launch as an act of US aggression while

information about Campbellʼs extraordinary profits highlighted Americaʼs relative

wealth. Articles such as these operated in tandem with Americaʼs prominent role

in Britainʼs humiliation at Suez to underline the nationʼs weakened global

standing and its replacement as the dominant western power by the United

States.

! Reading 1950s Science Fiction Films: Science and International

Relations

! Letters written to Picturegoer magazine during the 1950s reveal that

British audiences considered science fiction cinema as another site of Anglo-

American competition. They often expressed concern at the perceived

dominance of US genre films in Britain. In 1952, John de Vere Webb

complained that ʻalthough the science-fiction film has increased in popularity in

the past two years, little notice of this has been taken by our studios. Have we

to rely on America for all our futuristic films?ʼ32 In 1953, C.E. Barrett asked if the

country had ʻthe producers to make a science-fiction film and prove to

Hollywood that others can handle such subjectsʼ.33 In 1957, a reader named

only as D.C. similarly noted that ʻBritain is lagging behind in the screenʼs space

raceʼ.34 Picturegoer itself encouraged such transatlantic comparisons, framing

The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) as an attempt to ʻmake Hollywood scaredʼ

by the threat that Britain posed to its dominance of science fiction cinema.35 In

1958, when one reader suggested that a British studio should adapt John

Wyndhamʼs novel, The Day of the Triffids, the editorʼs response was simply to
222
note that ʻAmerica has beaten us to it. Columbia has bought the screen

rightsʼ.36 As these comments demonstrate, during the 1950s science fiction

cinema was perceived by some Britons as a further site of tension in the Anglo-

American relationship.

! This is perhaps unsurprising given that British cinemas experienced an

American invasion of their own during the 1950s, with a rush of US features

filling the nationʼs screens. As Alistair Davies notes, ʻin Britain, American films

have since the 1920s made up the bulk of annual programming, with the

proportion of American films increasing dramatically from the 1950s onwardsʼ.37

A significant portion of this US content was provided by the decadeʼs science

fiction boom. Many of these American genre films presented a picture of the

world dominated by the United States, perhaps adding to British frustration that

the nationʼs studios were not countering this image with significant numbers of

films of their own during the early and mid-1950s. One might anticipate a certain

degree of patriotism in American films such as Earth vs. the Flying Saucers or

Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957) given that they were made during a time

when the US saw itself locked in a global struggle with the USSR. More of a

puzzle are films such as Fiend Without a Face, a British film that, as the first

half of this section will demonstrate, had the potential to reinforce anxieties

about US dominance and British decline.

! Fiend without a Face, based on a short story by American author Amelia

Reynolds Long, takes place in and around a US airbase in Winthrop, Canada.

When townspeople are found dead the local Manitobans suspect that the

nearby American nuclear reactor might have played a role in their demise. Jeff

Cummings of the US Air Force hears about a British scientist who has retired to

the area and visits Professor Walgate at his home. It transpires that Walgate

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has been drawing energy from the nuclear reactor on the nearby airbase to

enhance his research into telekinesis. Walgate admits that his experiment

resulted in one of his thoughts escaping from his mind and taking on physical

form. To make matters worse, the thought is murderous, invisible and

multiplying. As the creatures draw power from the nuclear plant they gradually

take form, appearing as disembodied brains that are capable of pushing

themselves around by virtue of their attached spinal cords. These grotesque

monsters attack Walgate, Cummings and a handful of others in a local house.

After realising that the brain creatures can be killed by a gunshot wound, the

humans begin to fight back while Cummings escapes to destroy the power

plant. Upon its destruction the creatures lose their powers and are finally

defeated.

! Despite its British origins, Fiend offered its audience an ostentatiously

North American experience. The film had a British director and was distributed

by a British company called Eros Films. However, it was based on the work of

an American writer, featured American actors speaking in their native accents,

dubbed some of its British cast with American voices and was set on a United

States airbase in Canada. In this sense, Fiend is a good example of a trend,

observed by I. Q. Hunter, for British films that ʻmasqueraded as American

productionsʼ to strengthen their ability to draw a US audience.38 In many of

these films ʻAmerican stars were drafted to attract international attentionʼ, and

hence box office revenue, to otherwise potentially ignored British science fiction

films.39 As N. Peter Rathvon, the American producer behind the British film 1984

(1956), told Picturegoer, this was important because it allowed films ʻmore

drawing power in America, where the bulk of his receipts would have to be

foundʼ if the British censors gave a restrictive certificate.40 Fiendʼs producers

224
made use of this tactic to bolster its economic potential by casting Marshall

Thompson, an American actor who would go on to star in a handful of genre

films in the mid to late 1950s, including Cult of the Cobra (1955) and It! The

Terror from Beyond Space (1958), in its lead role. Through its setting, accents

and actors, Fiend makes a strong appeal to the North American market and

largely succeeds in its self-conscious attempt to hide its Britishness behind an

American facade.

! This awareness of transatlantic differences also plays out in the filmʼs

narrative through the contrasting characters of Walgate and Cummings. The

filmʼs only British character, Walgate fares poorly in comparison with

Cummings, the filmʼs American protagonist. Cummings is an honest, forthright

and youthful American, while the British academic is confused, bumbling,

irresponsible and elderly. If Britons were worried that their time as world leaders

was drawing to a close after Suez, seeing their nation represented on cinema

screens around the world by an old man on the verge of senility, who is capable

of causing problems but is unable to resolve them without the help of his

American friend, would have been troubling indeed. Walgate even stresses his

own incapacity. He claims that ʻthese days I welcome any excuse to stop workʼ,

while simply ʻhaving a quiet talkʼ with Cummings is enough to ensure that he

ʻgot dizzyʼ and confused. As Cummings comes closer to uncovering Walgateʼs

secret research, the professor again pleads that he is ʻtired and sickʼ. Although

Walgate uses his health and age as a smokescreen to disguise his culpability

for the recent deaths, the repeated emphasis placed on his senility resonates

with 1950s British anxieties about the nationʼs own perceived post-Suez

irrelevance as a colonial power in an increasingly post-colonial era.

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! The contrast between Britain and America suggested by the filmʼs

characters is also apparent in its presentation of science. In Fiend there are two

opposing schools of scientific practice, one associated with the research into

nuclear powered radar conducted on the American airbase, the other with the

British Professor's arcane experiments in his secret underground laboratory.

The former of these is perhaps the easier to characterise. The US airbase is a

clean, brightly lit space that contains computer equipment, men in crisp, smart

uniforms and a clearly defined command structure. Shots of spinning radar

dishes are paired with descriptions of highly sophisticated nuclear technology.

The ordered world of the military base serves to eulogise the American

scientific-military establishment.41

! In contrast to this American science, the British Professor Walgate

performs dangerously irresponsible work that leads to civilian deaths. In this

respect, I disagree with Andrew Tudor who uses Fiend as an example of a trend

in 1950s science fiction cinema to ʻloosen the direct link between science,

scientists and the threat that they produceʼ.42 Tudor sees Walgate as ʻa

scientist...[who] inadvertently creates a monsterʼ, absolving him of blame

because the creation of the thought beast was an accident.43 Although Walgate

certainly did not intend to create these creatures, during the flashback

sequence of his experiments into telekinesis he begins to resemble the

archetypal mad scientist. Cyndy Hendershotʼs description of the mad scientist

as a ʻmessiah figure bordering on apocalyptic destroyerʼ aptly addresses the

duality of Walgate who is at once a genial, elderly gentleman and a potential

destroyer of worlds.44 Unlike Dr. Charles Decker in the later British science

fiction film Konga (1961), a scientist who sends a monstrously enlarged

chimpanzee to kill his enemies, Walgate harbours no murderous intent.

226
However, he is part of a collective of well-intentioned but negligent British

scientists in 1950s science fiction films that included Dr. Laird from The Strange

World of Planet X (1957) and Bill Leggat from Four Sided Triangle (1953).

Lairdʼs principal crime is that he is so fixated on research into magnetic fields

that he does not sense the danger that his work poses, while Leggat is simply

too infatuated with a woman who loves somebody else to notice the immorality

of making a clone of her for himself. Walgate, Laird and Leggat, unlike Decker,

do not intend any harm, but their research produces inconceivable damage

nonetheless. As such, they all fit Hendershotʼs description of the mad scientist,

working with the best of intentions towards monstrous goals.

! This archetype also exists in American films of the era and Walgate

bears more than a passing resemblance to Dr. Edward Morbius from Forbidden

Planet (1956). Morbius becomes obsessed with his studies of the scientific

relics of an extinct civilisation until, just like Walgate, his thoughts take on a

murderous life of their own. Entrenched in a Freudian understanding of the

mind, Forbidden Planet sees Morbiusʼ id taking physical form and committing

violence unbidden by its owner. Although Morbius is a good example of the

American equivalent of the British mad scientists, the repetition of this character

type in Walgate, Leggat and Laird suggests that it held particular significance in

British science fiction cinema of the era.

! As Fiend demonstrates, American science was often presented as much

more controlled and consequently less dangerous than the work of these British

mad scientists. Indeed, the 1950s saw a trend for American actors playing

responsible US scientists in British science fiction films. A number of these

productions have already been encountered in this thesis. Professor Bernard

Quatermass, an English scientist in the original BBC television series, The

227
Quatermass Experiment, broadcast in 1953, was re-cast in the British Hammer

Film Productions cinema adaptation, The Quatermass Xperiment. There he was

played by American actor Brian Donlevy who used his native accent for the role.

Donlevyʼs American Quatermass returned with his US accent intact for one

sequel, Quatermass II (1957), which was a focus of Chapter Two of the current

study. Forrest Tucker, a US actor who hailed from Plainfield, Indiana, took the

lead in the British film The Trollenberg Terror (1958), discussed in Chapter

Three, playing American scientist Alan Brooks. Brooks himself is juxtaposed

with a more eccentric and less heroic European scientist from the Trollenberg

Observatory. One of the case study films from Chapter Four, Behemoth the Sea

Monster (1959), starred Gene Evans who was born in Holbrook, Arizona and

raised in Colton, California. Evans played the role of Steve Karnes, a scientist

who saves Britain from a gigantic lizard monster. These US actors in British

science fiction films, who could potentially have been seen as an American

invasion themselves, each played US scientists whose rational approach to the

world reflects the characterisation of American science found in Fiend.

! Just like Britain attempting to wield its military power in Egypt, only for

the United States to step in and take control of the resulting crisis, Walgate finds

that his brand of irresponsible and arcane scientific experimentation is prone to

creating disasters that only Cummings can resolve. Fiend Without a Face thus

held the potential to underline British anxieties about the countryʼs actions at

Suez and the ensuing erosion of its former international significance by the

rising power of the United States, with science and the figure of the scientist

being the sites through which this reading is mediated. Of course, it was not

only through science that this transatlantic tension was articulated and Jackie

Stacey has suggested that debates about the relative appeal of British and

228
American female film stars was another such point of contention. However,

perhaps as a result of its new importance in the age of satellites and atomic

bombs, science was one prominent lens through which these issues were

explored by the British public.45

! The ways in which science was presented in American science fiction

films that were screened in Britain during this period meant that they also had

the potential to be understood through British debates about US influence and

British decline. A number of these films depicted Britain as a nation helpless

against a hostile enemy without the scientific expertise and technological

ingenuity of the United States for protection. One such film is Earth vs. the

Flying Saucers, released in August 1956. Due to the system of film distribution

in Britain at that time, which staggered the release of features in different types

of cinemas in various locations during the weeks and months after their

premieres, Flying Saucers circulated in Britain before, during and after the Suez

crisis. For some British viewers, this film would have been a recent memory

when the United States effectively forced British withdrawal from Egypt in

November 1956, but others would have been watching it as these events

unfolded.

! Earth vs. the Flying Saucers tells the story of Russell Marvin, a recently

married American scientist who works on Project Skyhook, a US programme

that launches satellites into orbit. During one particular launch, however, a flying

saucer appears. The aliens are met with gunfire and retaliate by destroying the

Skyhook facility. Marvin and his wife survive this initial attack and he contacts

the aliens to arrange a meeting. The visitors demand humanityʼs surrender and

threaten its destruction. Saucers hover over major world cities, but Marvin gets

to work using his privileged knowledge of the aliens, gleaned from his contact

229
with them, to devise a weapon that will stop their campaign against humanity.

He produces a potent sonic device that is capable of disrupting the flying

saucers. Using it on the alien craft that have begun to wage war on Washington,

Marvin and the US military send them crashing into a number of famous D.C.

landmarks. The war is won and Marvin and his wife take some well deserved

rest.

! Science is clearly an important issue in Flying Saucers, with both

humanity and the alien menace relying on their own scientific prowess to

support their military campaigns. Marvin uses his scientific expertise to produce

the sonic weapon while the creatures use their technologically advanced

spacecraft to threaten humankind. More subtly, it is suggested that the aliens

rely on technology to make up for their physiological shortcomings by

enhancing their sensory receptivity. At one point a human character tries on an

alien helmet, finding that it enables him to hear sounds over much greater

distances. Bill Warren connects this to a similar moment in The War of the

Worlds (1953), in which the analysis of an extraterrestrialʼs electronic eye

exposes some of the differences between human and alien biology. As Warren

argues, ʻin that film, the very alienness of the Martians is part of the story, and

the sequence works because it adds to our knowledge of just how strange the

Martians are. But in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, the only real enemy are the

flying saucers themselvesʼ, thereby rendering the exploration of alien physiology

in the later film thematically disjointed.46 The sequence in Flying Saucers is

devoid of the earlier filmʼs interest in extraterrestrial bodies and serves only to

fetishise technology, a trait that is also apparent in the filmʼs spectacular shots

of the alien craft and its narrative focus on advanced weaponry. As this

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demonstrates, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers is a film that goes to some lengths

to stress the importance of science and technology.

! The significance that this film attaches to science takes on new meaning

when seen alongside its glorification of American technological knowledge and

its marginalisation of Britain. Most probably drawing inspiration from the famous

ending of The War of the Worlds, in which the global reach of the defeated alien

invasion is shown through images of destruction at the Eiffel Tower, Christ the

Redeemer and the Taj Mahal, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers contains a short

sequence that depicts saucers in the skies above Paris and London. Britain is

shown to be under threat, but this six second shot is the countryʼs only

appearance in the film, aside from a very brief glimpse of Londoners listening to

a warning from the visitors, and no clear suggestion of its fate is offered.

American author Bill Warren expresses discomfort with this moment, observing

that ʻthe aliens are said to be at war with the entire world, and we see brief

glimpses of...saucers over various European cities, but the attack is confined to

Washington, D.C.ʼ.47 Warren is not strictly correct since there is no conclusive

evidence that the saucers leave London and Paris without attacking, but the film

is so concerned with America that it certainly only depicts the Washington

assault. The British are terrorised by flying saucers, but British audiences were

to be left guessing at how their fictional compatriots fared since the filmʼs

narrative is not interested in their fate.48

! Flying Saucersʼ marginalisation of Britain can be understood in relation to

its interest in science. The film suggests that both Britain and America are in

desperate need of scientifically advanced weaponry capable of repelling the

invasion, but it only places this crucial technology in American hands. Indeed,

materials have to be shipped to the United States from across the world so that

231
Marvin and his fellow American scientists can construct the weapon. Britain is

shown to suffer a parallel threat to the US, but it is American technological

superiority that repels the invaders while Europe is obliterated from the

narrative, casting doubt over Britainʼs capacity for self-preservation, let alone

international leadership. In a film where science is held in as high regard as it is

in Flying Saucers, Americaʼs greater mastery over technology served to

underline its growing real world dominance.

! This reading would almost certainly not have occurred to the vast

majority of US audiences of this film since it relies on particular attention being

paid to the positioning of Britain within the narrative, something that most

American viewers might not have been overly concerned with. However, in

Britain, a nation already primed to speculate about its countryʼs place in the

rapidly changing world of 1956, this interpretation had the potential to be been

particularly relevant. Given the ways in which Flying Saucers uses science and

technology to draw comparisons between Britain and the United States, this film

was particularly suited to act as a site of confluence for the various public

debates that produced, negotiated and intensified anxieties about Suez, the rise

of America and Britainʼs new place in the global order. Just like Fiend Without a

Face, Flying Saucersʼ depicted science and technology in a way that allowed

Britons to reflect on their ongoing retreat from international dominance.

! Characterising Public Debate: Science Fiction Britain

! As well as being a means by which science fiction films could comment

on other national debates, science itself became a topic of public interest in its

own right in 1950s Britain. Perhaps as a consequence of the fascination with

science that resulted from the development of nuclear weaponry and artificial

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satellites, the mid to late 1950s was a time in which scientific research and new

technologies became headline news in Britainʼs media. This was true of the

nationʼs newspapers which, for example, made much of Britainʼs Sir Alexander

Todd being awarded the Nobel prize for chemistry in late October 1957, but it

was perhaps the newsreels shown in British cinemas that were most adept at

presenting scientific research in an exciting manner.49 In doing so, they

frequently stressed the Britishness of new scientific developments, framing

Britain as a country at the forefront of technological progress.

! In June 1958, for example, British Movietone News released a newsreel

featuring a story entitled Ship of the Future.50 This reported on the development

of an early hovercraft, stressing that, although it was demonstrated by a Swiss

designer, it was a British invention and could soon be in use in Britain. Similarly,

This Car is History (1958), a British Pathé newsreel, reported on the arrival of

Jet 1, a gas turbine car, at the Science Museum in Kensington, London.51 Jet 1

is positioned both as the car of the future, through the claim that in years to

come ʻthe petrol pump will give way to the paraffin pumpʼ, and also as a

uniquely British achievement from the iconic British company Rover. This Car is

History thus stresses the scientific expertise of the nation, claiming that Jet 1

ʻgives Britain a flying startʼ. The British public is invited to look forward to

reaping the rewards of this national success through the claim that ʻit may be

some years before gas turbine cars are on sale to the public, but the Rover Jet

1 has already solved many of the problems which will bring nearer the dayʼ

when ordinary Britons could own this impressive piece of futuristic technology

for themselves. Elsewhere, The Vital Vaccine (1957) reported on the new

ʻBritish vaccineʼ against polio, the first of its kind, claiming that it had already

been of benefit to a significant and expanding number of British children.52

233
999ʼs New Home (1957) claimed that new technologies used in emergency

services control centres had halved the time it took to dispatch personnel.53 In

each of these films Britain is presented as a nation on the verge of a

technological transformation, about to enjoy the fruits of its scientific expertise.

! Many of these technologies were either only on trial in limited areas of

the country or were still being tested and so did not feature in the lives of the

majority of ordinary Britons. However, these newsreels constructed an image of

a second, technologically superior Britain that was in the process of revamping

the world that the viewer inhabited. This science fictional convergence of 1950s

Britain and its futuristic counterpart is perhaps most evident in House of Ideas

(1957), a newsreel article that depicted what domestic life might be like in the

coming years, but which set these optimistic fantasies within recognisably

contemporary contexts.54 This was done explicitly through the narrationʼs

description of how ʻeighteenth and twentieth centuries meet in a new house in

Blackheathʼ, in which ʻthe Georgian concept of a terraced house is adapted to

meet the requirements and tempo of todayʼ. This phraseology collided the old

and the new, constructing a futuristic reality within the context of the

recognisable world. This traditional Georgian house contained advanced

features such as ʻthermostatically controlled central heatingʼ, ʻa sheltered

garden right in the houseʼ and moveable glass walls. All of this futuristic

technology could be found in a real house in Blackheath, a district of London,

indicating that it might soon be available to aspirational home owners

throughout the country. By colliding the present and the future, House of Ideas

further suggested the technological transformation of Britain.

! Just as this newsreel reconstructed Blackheath as a small corner of the

future nestling within 1950s London, so too did Listening to the Stars (1957)

234
transform the Cheshire countryside into a science fictional landscape beneath

the futuristic structure of the Lovell Telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory.55

Accompanied by a soundtrack of otherworldly, ethereal strings, this newsreel

shows the enormous radio telescope from unusual angles, including overhead

shots of the complex network of supports that make up the body of the structure

and panning shots of the vast concave hollow of the dish taken from within.

These unfamiliar sounds and images present Jodrell Bank as a futuristic

construction, but long shots locate it in a familiar rural landscape. This film thus

sets the mundane and the contemporary against the unusual and the

technologically advanced, mirroring the clash of present and future found in

numerous other 1950s newsreel stories, notably House of Ideas. These were

films in which Britain was seen as an increasingly science fictional country

engaged in the transformation of its recognisable landscapes and urban spaces

through its technological expertise.

! Newsreels of this period frequently framed recording and broadcasting

technologies as the vanguard of the technological revolution, particularly in

terms of the expanding use of closed-circuit television (CCTV) in Britain. In

November 1959, for example, British Movietone News produced a film entitled

Bank on the Telly that looked at the innovative use of cameras in banking.56 A

customer watches a television screen in a bank managerʼs office while,

elsewhere in the building, her records are accessed and shown to a camera.

This image appears on the customerʼs monitor, providing her with the

information she requires and removing the need for people to move around the

bank. Similarly, A Telly Copper (1958) reported that police in Durham were able

to monitor traffic flow in the city centre via a CCTV feed.57 An Eye on Your

Wheels (1959) showed cameras being used to relay images of the testing of car

235
parts to a nearby laboratory.58 In each of these films the CCTV camera is used

to frame recording and broadcasting technologies as examples of how science

was already helping to improve British life. This entanglement of visual

technologies and scientific advancement was a recurring trope in newsreels

during the second half of the 1950s, with cameras and screens functioning as a

form of shorthand for technological progress.

! CCTV was not the only visual technology handled in this way by British

newsreels. Television, too, was framed as a futuristic medium, especially after

1952, when domestic TV ownership doubled in a year, largely as a result of the

coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, bringing more Britons than ever before into

contact with the technology.59 In 1957, British Movietone News released a

newsreel film that overtly connected the technologies of television broadcasting

and space exploration, helping to propagate the perception that television was

part of Britainʼs move into the future. Rockets for BBC discussed stability tests

performed on the television broadcasting tower at Crystal Palace.60 Erected the

previous year and nicknamed Londonʼs Eiffel Tower, this seven hundred feet tall

latticed metalwork construction, the largest structure in the British capital until

One Canada Square was built at Canary Wharf in the early 1990s, must have

looked decidedly futuristic amidst Londonʼs mid-century skyline. This impression

was developed further when British Movietone News described the use of

ʻrocketsʼ during the stress tests on the tower, using this term in the context of a

world that had only the previous month seen the rocket-propelled launch of

Sputnik, the worldʼs first artificial satellite, by the USSR. Rockets for BBC drew

on the language of the dawning space age to associate Britainʼs television

infrastructure with scientific and technological advancement.

236
! Another newsreel article to position visual technology as a site at which

Britainʼs promised scientific age was already emerging was TV Camera Helps

Building (1959).61 This film describes how a camera allowed engineers to

examine the foundations of a building being constructed on Londonʼs South

Bank. The newsreel stresses that this was a significant development for the

construction industry, but the camera is also framed as a futuristic device

through the filmʼs mimicry of science fiction tropes. As the camera descends

into the pit the viewer watches the footage that it captures while the narration

comments that ʻit would certainly set the cat amongst the pigeons if a strange

face suddenly appeared from the bowels of the Earthʼ. This draws on a motif

that had been used to great effect only a few months earlier when the BBCʼs

science fiction television serial Quatermass and the Pit, which ran from

December 1958 to January 1959, featured an alien skull being unearthed

during building work in Knightsbridge, London. If the narration in TV Camera

Helps Building was not intended as a deliberate reference to the Quatermass

serial, the sheer popularity of the BBC programme suggests that the newsreelʼs

audience would have been likely to make this connection regardless. TV

Camera Helps Building continues by claiming that ʻyou can laugh, but at the

rate our scientists are forging ahead youʼll never know what weʼll find nextʼ,

implicitly suggesting that science was venturing into the unknown where unlikely

events, such as those depicted in the science fiction programme referenced by

this newsreel, were possible. In late 1950s Britain, where the motifs of genre

films were relatively familiar, this clash of reality, fiction and science had the

potential to suggest that the country was a place where the dawning

technological age could turn the imagined futures of science fiction cinema and

television into a reality.

237
! Bank on the Telly, A Telly Copper, An Eye on Your Wheels, Rockets for

BBC and TV Camera Helps Building are all examples of newsreel films that tied

visual technologies to Britainʼs promised technological age. The camera and the

screen, technologies that had existed in cinema for decades, were again being

looked on as objects of excitement. The new interest in broadcasting and

recording technologies, ushered in by the increase in TV ownership, invested

cinema and the cinematic apparatus with a revitalised sense of importance.

Technologically mediated reception was once again being presented as a

thrilling glimpse of modern science in action. In this regard, it is significant that

newsreels were instrumental in popularising the notion that both Britain and

cinema technology were on the cutting edge of science. Not only was this a

message about cinema, but also a message delivered in cinemas. Audiences

were presented with the idea that the very entertainment experience that they

were partaking of was something exciting and futuristic, perhaps never more so

than if their chosen film was about futuristic technology itself, as was the case

with much of the 1950s science fiction boom. The following section will

demonstrate how this context of reception made possible particular readings of

1950s science fiction films that made use of new technological advances in film

production and distribution.

! Reading 1950s Science Fiction Films: The Technologies of Science

Fiction Cinema

! Just like these contemporary British newsreels, many 1950s science

fiction films presented recording and broadcasting technologies as scientifically

advanced. The shots of London and Paris under threat in Flying Saucers are

shown to human characters on a large video screen aboard a technologically

238
sophisticated alien craft, while This Island Earth (1955) featured what we might

today term a videophone. However, this preoccupation with cameras, images

and screens was only one of the ways in which science fiction films of the

1950s embedded visual technologies into the futures they presented. Many

such films incorporated new cinematic technology into their very fabric via their

extensive use of special effects and new modes of projection. These films relied

heavily on stop motion animation, intricate model shots, composite shots,

complex pyrotechnics, 3D cinematography, CinemaScope, new colour

processes such as SuperCineColor and the combination of traditional animation

and live action footage in the same frame. More than any other genre, science

fiction films were laden with images produced and projected using new

technologies. Errol Vieth notes that ʻspecial effects in science fiction film are

different from special effects in other genres, in that their ability to transmogrify

the unreal into the real is central to the filmʼs ability to induce the willing

suspension of disbelief in an audienceʼ.62 This is certainly true of 1950s science

fiction films, many of which were not merely about advanced technology, but

were necessarily and ostentatiously products of advanced technology. British

cinemas became locations where new technologically mediated audiovisual

thrills could be experienced. As such, this section argues that watching science

fiction films in 1950s Britain might have felt like a futuristic, technological

experience that anticipated the coming scientific age promised by contemporary

newsreels.

! The attention paid to the technical details of science fiction cinemaʼs

special effects by British film magazines of the 1950s, notably Picturegoer,

suggests that the genre intersected with British excitement about scientific

progress. Articles often explained how particular shots or effects were achieved

239
in some detail. Visiting the set of Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953),

Picturegoer noted with some interest that a layer of smoke on a pool of water ʻis

made by blowing “dry ice” (solid carbon dioxide) through a thick hoseʼ.63

Similarly, Picturegoer quoted the craftsperson responsible for creating the

creature in The Quatermass Xperiment, a man named Les Bowie but referred to

in this interview as Jim Bowie, claiming:

We went to the slaughterhouse, got some tripe and cut it up...We made a rubber
frame with lots of joints. After photographing it in miniature, we married it up with
paintings on foreground glass - and eventually made it look like the monster was
inside Westminster Abby. 64

When Picturegoer witnessed the production of Britainʼs first major 1950s

science fiction film, Spaceways (1953), David Marlowe reported back that

ʻprocesses such as matte shots, optical printing, back projection and cutting into

the flights of real rockets are being used to give the picture the same touch of

authenticity - or impossibility, whichever you prefer - as those other high-flown

wonders made in Hollywoodʼ.65 The magazine was also impressed by ʻthe

technical brilliance of Disneyʼs under-water sequences, and by shots of the

submarineʼs destructionʼ in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1955).66

Picturegoer even once went so far as to claim that the ʻtechnical stuffʼ in Flight

to Mars (1951) was ʻfar more interesting than the reactions of the charactersʼ.67

As these responses suggest, in 1950s Britain special effects sequences in

science fiction films aroused curiosity about the science and technology that

underpinned their production.

! This curiosity about the production of these films suggests that

Picturegoer was displaying what Michele Pierson, drawing on the work of Philip

Fisher, terms ʻwonderʼ.68 For Pierson, ʻonly visual effects have the power to elicit

the aesthetic experiences of amazement, admiration, and delight associated

with wonder and the intellectual curiosity that it excitesʼ.69 Crucial to this

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understanding of wonder is the notion that a visual experience can provoke an

intellectual response. Pierson stresses this connection, arguing that ʻone of the

attractions of this way of thinking about wonder is that it makes thought a

component of aesthetic experience, returning to it an incitement to curiosity and

contemplationʼ.70 This can be seen in Picturegoerʼs fascination with the

technical details behind the visual effects of 1950s science fiction films. The

attention paid to the production of these shots served to satisfy the intellectual

curiosity that the images themselves provoked. Picturegoer found much to

wonder at in 1950s science fiction films and invited its readers to wonder at

them too.

! No matter how impressive the special effects of these films appeared, the

reality of the situation was that they often did not make use of the type of cutting

edge technology that British audiences were fascinated by during the 1950s. In

terms of Flying Saucers, Ray Harryhausen, the famed special effects artist who

worked on the production, used rather cumbersome techniques to deliver the

most striking images of the film. Rather than employing expensive high speed

photography to capture images of falling rubble, for example, the filmʼs limited

budget dictated that laborious stop motion animation be used instead. Each

tumbling block was suspended by a wire and was lowered a fraction of an inch

every time a new frame of footage was taken. Similarly, Harryhausen has

described using very simple techniques when shooting the flying saucers

themselves, such as hanging ʻthe miniatures in front of the rear-projected live-

action platesʼ using ʻoverhead wiresʼ.71 Flying Saucersʼ restrictive budget

enforced strict limitations on the nature of the special effects work that

Harryhausen could do, prohibiting him from making use of expensive new

technologies.

241
! However, the response that Earth vs. the Flying Saucers received in

Britain suggests that these limitations did not impinge on the filmʼs ability to

inspire wonder. Picturegoer, for example, commented in 1957 that the film

contained ʻbrilliant model workʼ.72 Recent commentators have tended to agree.

John D. Daugherty has described Flying Saucers as ʻthe special effects

extravaganza of its dayʼ, while Patrick Lucanio has drawn attention to the

ʻoutstanding model work and stop-motion photography by Ray Harryhausenʼ.73

Despite their humbles origins, Harryhausenʼs accomplished special effects

sequences have clearly been able to inspire a strong sense of wonder,

suggesting that they had the potential to appear as products of advanced visual

effects technology. This impression is heightened when this film is placed in the

context of the low quality effects of many contemporary science fiction films and

television programmes that British audiences watched, such as those of the

BBCʼs Quatermass serials (1953, 1955 and 1958-9). In this regard, it is

significant that Flying Saucers is, alongside The War of the Worlds, one of very

few 1950s science fiction films to feature sustained sequences of alien craft in

flight. More typical of the era are films such as It! The Terror from Beyond

Space, discussed in Chapter Three, which makes very sparing use of its

disappointing spacecraft effects. Although It! is set almost entirely aboard a

spaceship, it uses only occasional and brief exterior shots of the vessel in flight.

The principal exception is an uninspiring sequence where footage of a man in a

spacesuit walking against a black background is tilted to give the impression

that he is walking vertically down the outside of the craft. This type of cheap and

visually unimpressive effects sequence, common in much of the genre during

this period, contrasts sharply with the extensive and elaborate shots of alien

spaceships and falling debris in Flying Saucers. This suggests that this film and

242
others that achieved similarly outstanding special effects, such as Forbidden

Planet, could have had a significant impact on viewers used to substandard

offerings. In comparison to many or its peers Flying Saucers looked as if it was

created using an advanced and technologically sophisticated production

process.74

! The special effects in Fiend Without a Face received attention in the

British press for different reasons. While Harryhausen created a dramatic

spectacle in Flying Saucers, particularly during the destruction of various

Washington landmarks, Baron Florenz von Nordhoff and Klaus-Ludwig Ruppel,

the Munich-based team behind Fiendʼs stop motion animation, produced effects

that were less grand, but perhaps more shocking. Indeed, the model work in

Fiend has been described as ʻthe goriest effects from the fiftiesʼ.75 During the

climax of this film, the human characters discover that the thought monsters are

susceptible to gunfire. What follows is a disturbing and bloody sequence in

which the beasts, who resemble human brains with attached spinal cords, are

repeatedly shot, bleed profusely, gasp in agony and slowly die. James Kendrick

has described how ʻwhen the fiends are shot, they ooze large glops of viscous

matter and expire with a grotesque wheezing that, as one critic noted, sounds

like a leaking bicycle tire. Fiend is quite gruesome even todayʼ.76 Revealingly,

Fiendʼs executive producer told interviewer Tom Weaver that ʻwe had to make a

cut version for England because the British censor didnʼt want to pass itʼ in as

gruesome a form as was initially intended.77 However, some of the bloodier

shots must have been present in the version that was released in Britain since

no other sequence would have given Picturegoer cause to describe Fiendʼs

creatures as ʻreally messy monstersʼ.78 Even before their deaths, the effects

work on the creatures is detailed and impressive. Antennae and spinal cords

243
wave and wiggle independently, lending the creatures personality and a certain

level of individuality. Fiend is, as John Johnson claims, ʻone of the most

innovative stop motion pictures ever madeʼ.79 Just as Harryhausenʼs work was

technically accomplished enough to suggest a technologically sophisticated

production process, the same could be argued of Nordhoff and Ruppelʼs special

effects.

! Despite the unimpressive effects work in films such as It! The Terror from

Beyond Space, there were a number of other 1950s science fiction films that,

alongside Fiend, Flying Saucers and Forbidden Planet, were able to appear

technologically sophisticated. As indicated above, The War of the Worlds was

one such production. Despite being dismissive of much of the film, Picturegoerʼs

reviewer, for example, was pleased with George Palʼs animation and model

work. Margaret Hinxman claimed:

Itʼs just one magnificent film stunt from start to finish. Its dialogue makes you wince.
Its incidental love story gives you a drearily hollow feeling in the pit of your
stomach. All that, yet The War of the Worlds...is a film that will make picturegoers
sit up. For itʼs a film that stars special effects...And can a film get by on trick
effects? Obviously, this one suggests it can. 80

Hinxman describes how ʻPalʼs special effects pulverise you into a state of

breathlessnessʼ.81 She recalls witnessing ʻeye-popping incident upon eye-

popping incident with barely breathing space in betweenʼ.82 Similarly, The

Manchester Guardian praised the special effects used to create this filmʼs

creatures, deeming them ʻcertainly the most frightening and possibly the ugliest

Martians yet discovered by cinemaʼ.83 Aside from model work and stop motion

animation, other types of technologically driven cinematography were also

enjoyed by British reviewers. Picture Show magazine thought that Creature

From the Black Lagoon (1954) ʻhas some first-rate underwater scenesʼ.84 This

sense of wonder was apparent in British science fiction film reviews into the

244
early 1960s, when, despite being disappointed by the inexpressive model used

for the mother of the reptile beast in Gorgo (1961), Monthly Film Bulletin

certainly found the composite shots impressive and suggested that they gave

the film ʻa touch of grandeur, notably in the shots of Ma Gorgo towering angrily

over Piccadilly Circusʼ.85 British reviewers found great pleasure in wondering at

the array of special effects technologies utilised by science fiction cinema when

they were employed effectively. For British audiences excited about the

prospect of scientific advancements, these films were able to provide an

experience that incited curiosity about cutting edge technologies, even though

the reality of their production often did not match the illusion.

! Other technological developments also underpinned and facilitated the

1950s science fiction boom. 3D films, for example, had existed in various forms

since The Power of Love was screened at the Ambassador Hotel in Los

Angeles in 1922, but by the time of Bwana Devil (1953), the first American

colour film to be shot in 3D, it had become economically and technologically

viable for this type of production to be given a broad commercial release.86

Such films are shot on two cameras simultaneously and both images are

projected on top of one another. By wearing special glasses, audiences are

provided with the illusion that the film has depth, or that it occupies three

dimensional space rather than the traditional flat screen. In 1953, Universal

brought science fiction cinema into the 3D age with It Came from Outer Space,

discussed in Chapter Three of this thesis. This filmʼs 3D cinematography was

stressed by its promotional material, some of which drew on a precedent

established earlier in 1953, with the release of House of Wax, for suggesting

that 3D emphasised the appeal of the female body to male audiences. When

Photoplay magazine published a brief interview with Phyllis Kirkland, the female

245
star of House of Wax, the interviewer noted that ʻI mentioned...the tag the

publicity people had given her of “The Girl with the 3-D shape.” (For the record,

her measurements are: bust 32, waist 22, hips 33½, height 5ft. 5ins.)ʼ.87

Similarly, The Daily Mirror printed a short article about It Came from Outer

Space, claiming that ʻa solemn little meeting has just taken place at...the

American censorʼs H.Q....For what may be acceptable in two dimensions can

be highly revealing when seen in “depth”ʼ.88 The article goes on to draw

attention to the 3D presence of actress Kathleen Hughes in It Came,

presumably anticipating that male audiences might wish to see her in this

ʻhighly revealingʼ state. Taking advantage, perhaps unwittingly, of the sense of

excitement that was being generated in Britain around the notion of scientific

progress, 3D science fiction films were partly marketed as a means of

technologically enhancing the traditional draws of the cinema, such as the

sexual appeal of a filmʼs stars. Films of this type, such as Creature from the

Black Lagoon, Revenge of the Creature (1955), Cat-Women of the Moon (1954)

and Gog (1954), afforded British audiences the chance to see films about

science and technology in a manner that highlighted the new technological

apparatus of the cinema.

! The same is true of the various science fiction films that were shot and

screened in CinemaScope during this decade. CinemaScope was a widescreen

format that allowed for an image almost twice as broad as had previously been

the norm. It ʻsqueezed onto the film a wide field of view to be unsqueezed in

projectionʼ, thereby making it necessary for cinemas to install much larger

screens.89 Reflecting this alteration to the cinema auditorium, Richard Maltby

has called CinemaScope ʻthe most drastic shift in what the screen looked like in

the history of cinemaʼ (Maltbyʼs emphasis).90 Maltby describes how ʻtechnical

246
explanations of CinemaScope suggested that it activated the viewerʼs

peripheral vision and required lateral eye movement. Together these ocular

effects replaced the feeling of watching a framed picture with the sensation of

viewing an actual spaceʼ.91 Martin Halliwell notes that this sensation

ʻencouraged viewers to lose themselves in the epic scale, emphasising

dramatic and symbolic elements often muted inʼ the traditional aspect ratio.92

This technique ʻhelped to revolutionise how films were constructed and

dramatically changed the experience of cinema-goingʼ.93 These effects made

CinemaScope a powerful attraction for audiences, so much so that Picturegoer

began to signal its use by printing the CinemaScope logo next to reviews of

films that were projected in this way from 1955 onwards.94 Consequently,

science fiction films such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Forbidden Planet,

World Without End (1956), Queen of Outer Space (1959) and Journey to the

Centre of the Earth (1959) became strongly associated with this new technology

of film distribution, both in their promotion and their consumption. As with 3D,

CinemaScope was able to appeal to audiences as a technological experience.

! Through both on-screen and in-auditorium effects, science fiction offered

an extensive range of technologically mediated and crafted pleasures during

the 1950s. As the reviews printed in British publications show, the appeal of

these films was derived in no small part from their engagement with and

embodiment of technology. The new effects technologies did not merely enable

the 1950s science fiction boom, they were an inalienable part of its attraction,

especially in Britain where science and technology were already sites of great

public interest. Errol Viethʼs observation that ʻin this genre...special effects

assume star status in the same way that humans assume star status in other

genresʼ was never more true than in 1950s Britain.95 Vieth continues that

247
ʻscience fiction is as much a product of film technology as any other influenceʼ,

but in the 1950s, science fiction was not merely a product of that technology,

but an expression of it too.96 In this sense, watching science fiction in Britainʼs

cinemas during the 1950s became one way in which ordinary people could

experience something of the new technological age promised by the newsreels

that they watched before the films began. This symbiotic relationship between

newsreels that promised technological advancements and the films that

followed them onto the screen, which were themselves embedded with

technology, allowed science fiction cinema to both make use of and support the

perception that Britain was entering into a period of scientific and technological

discovery.

! Conclusion

! The 1950s was a decade in which discussions about science and

technology took prominence in British public debate. This was signalled quite

early in the decade when the 1951 Festival of Britain, a series of exhibitions

aimed at reinvigorating national morale in the face of slow post-war

reconstruction, put science at its very heart. The architecture of the exhibition

suggested a futuristic utopia of new technologies. This was particularly true of

the Skylon, a seemingly unsupported needle that jutted ninety meters into the

air above Londonʼs South Bank. Next to the Skylon stood the largest dome in

the world, the aptly named Dome of Discovery. Pre-dating the Millennium Dome

by half a century, this ninety-three meter tall structure invited visitors to see

exhibitions that demonstrated new discoveries of both the natural and human

worlds. In South Kensington an exhibition focused exclusively on science, while

Glasgowʼs Kelvin Hall displayed items and technologies related to the theme of

248
industrial power. As well as standing displays in many British cities, other

exhibitions toured the nation, taking the wonders of modern science, technology

and discovery to Britons across the country. As a celebration of what Britain

stood for at the dawn of the second half of the Twentieth Century, the Festival of

Britain was unambiguous in its suggestion of the centrality of science to the

nation and its future.

! Science duly became a key issue in 1950s Britain, particularly in cinemas

where newsreels, special effects, new projection technologies and the plots of

science fiction films placed it under the spotlight. As Bonnie Noonan and Mark

Jancovich have demonstrated, however, the presentation of science in these

films was flexible enough to enable it to address other, sometimes seemingly

unconnected debates.97 This suggests that topics that were both directly and

indirectly related to science itself influenced its interpretation in 1950s science

fiction films. This chapter has traced this process in Britain in terms of two

different public debates. It might be of little surprise that Britainʼs hopes for a

technologically advanced future played a role in shaping the British reception of

science in 1950s science fiction cinema, since these were films that often made

prominent narrative use of laboratories, scientists and futuristic gadgetry, but so

too did less obviously connected topics, such as the anxieties that followed

Britainʼs withdrawal from Suez in 1956. In British cinemas, science in 1950s

science fiction films was available for interpretation in relation to aspirations for

the supposed technological age that the nation presumed was due, but

concerns about declining British influence and American invasion could equally

have played a role in shaping its reception.

! This is significant to the current thesis because it demonstrates that, like

the alien Other discussed in Section A, science in 1950s science fiction cinema

249
was polysemic and was open for use by British audiences as a means of

making sense of a number of different issues. The meanings that were available

to British viewers in these films were, therefore, heavily influenced by the socio-

political contexts of reception, since it was, at least in part, the agenda of

national debate that dictated the issues through which they were read. As a

result, science in the eraʼs science fiction films was able to take on divergent

meanings in Britain and America, where, as demonstrated in the Introduction,

the landscape of 1950s public debate was often quite different. The discussion

presented above has outlined some of the ways in which this process of

interpreting science in genre cinema was able to take place with regards to a

number of national debates in Britain, thereby suggesting something of the

specificity of the British reception of these films. In demonstrating this specificity,

this chapter has further exposed the inadequacy of the application of American

readings of 1950s science fiction to British audiences.

Notes
1 The full text of each of the Queenʼs Christmas Broadcasts can be found at The Official
Website of the British Monarchy. No date provided. ʻThe Queenʼs Christmas Broadcastsʼ, The
Official Website of the British Monarchy. http://www.royal.gov.uk/ImagesandBroadcasts/
TheQueensChristmasBroadcasts/Overview.aspx. Retrieved 28 January 2011. All quotations
from these broadcasts used in this chapter have been taken from this website.
2Noonan, Bonnie. 2005. Women Scientists in Fifties Science Fiction Films. Jefferson, NC:
McFarland. p.6.
3Jancovich, Mark. 1996. Rational Fears: American Horror in the 1950s. Manchester:
Manchester University Press. p.27.
4 Ibid.
53D is a technology that allows the wearer of special glasses to see a film in three dimensions,
with the image gaining the illusion of depth. CinemaScope uses a broader cinema screen to
provide a more immersive experience. More details of these technologies and their use in
1950s science fiction films are provided later in this chapter.
6Dockrill, Saki. 2002. Britainʼs Retreat from East of Suez: The Choice Between Europe and the
World?. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. p.1.
7 Ibid.

250
8Dombroski, Kenneth R. 2007. Peacekeeping in the Middle East as an International Regime.
Abingdon: Routledge. p.43.
9Kirshner, Jonathan. 1995. Currency and Coercion: The Political Economy of International
Monetary Power. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p.69.
10Kyle, Keith. 2003. Suez: Britainʼs End of Empire in the Middle East. London: I. B. Tauris. p.
581.
11 Dockrill. Britainʼs Retreat from East of Suez. p.1.
12Stockwell, A. J. 2008. ʻSuez 1956 and the Moral Disarmament of the British Empireʼ, in Smith
(2008: 227-238). p.232.
13 Rousseau, David L. 2005. Democracy and War: Institutions, Norms and the Evolution of
International Conflict. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. p.65.
14 Stockwell. ʻSuez 1956 and the Moral Disarmament of the British Empireʼ. p.232.
15
Anon. 6 November 1956. ʻThe Act of War: More Readersʼ Views on Suezʼ, The Manchester
Guardian. p.6.
16Shaw, Tony. 1996. Eden, Suez and the Mass Media: Propaganda and Persuasion During the
Suez Crisis. London: I.B. Tauris. p.92.
17 Anon. 12 November 1956. ʻ“Dishonoured All Over World”ʼ, The Times. p.4.
18 Stockwell. ʻSuez 1956 and the Moral Disarmament of the British Empireʼ. p.232.
19
Bennett, George Henry. 2007. Destination Normandy: Three American Regiments on D-Day.
Westport, CT: Praeger Security International. p.2.
20Webster, Wendy. 2009. ʻShorn Women, Rubble Women and Military Heroes: Gender,
National Identity and the Second World War in Britain, France and Germany, 1944-1948ʼ, in
Rorato and Saunders (2009: 51-70). p.57.
21 Anon. 16 February 1951. ʻBlow the Bagpipes - Bogartʼs Coming!ʼ, The Daily Mirror. p.4.
22 Asman, James. 5 April 1950. ʻA Jazzmanʼs Whoʼs-Whereʼ, The Daily Mirror. p.8.
23 Anon. 16 May 1950. ʻAmerican Invasionʼ, The Daily Mirror. p.10.
24Brown, Kennedy. 17 January 1951. ʻObnoxious - Thatʼs What He Calls His Music!ʼ, The Daily
Mirror. p.8.
25 Kilmartin, Terence. 25 May 1952. ʻFestival in Parisʼ, The Observer. p.8.
26 Anon. 13 August 1957. ʻBritish - American Filmsʼ, The Manchester Guardian. p.4.
27
Cooke, Alistair. 7 January 1957. ʻJust an Honest Mistake by the Texansʼ, The Manchester
Guardian. p.1.
28 Ibid.
29 Anon. 2 January 1957. ʻ$350M. for Petrol by Mayʼ, The Manchester Guardian. p.2.
30 Anon. 16 May 1958. ʻWarning of Britainʼs Losses in Medical Research Menʼ, The Times. p.5.
31 Mammon. 6 December 1959. ʻCampbellʼs Are Comingʼ, The Observer. p.3.
32 Webb, John de Vere. 26 April 1952. Published letter, Picturegoer. p.3.
33 Barrett, C.E. 18 July 1953. Published letter, Picturegoer. p.3.
34 D.C. 9 November 1957. Published letter, Picturegoer. p.3.
251
35 Stoddart, Sarah. 26 November 1955. ʻBritain Gets a Monsterʼ, Picturegoer. p.11.
36Gladwell, Brian. 7 September 1958. Published letter, Picturegoer. p.3. Despite this claim,
when the film version of Triffids was released in 1962 it came from a British studio.
37Davies, Alistair. 2000. ʻA Cinema in Between: Postwar British Cinemaʼ in Davies and Sinfield
(2000: 110-124). p.111.
38Hunter, I. Q. 1999a. ʻIntroduction: The Strange Worlds of the British Science Fiction Filmʼ, in
Hunter (1999b: 1-15). p.8.
39 Ibid.
40 Player, Ernie. 2 July 1955. ʻThis British Film Must Shock Americaʼ, Picturegoer. p.14.
41Of course, the nuclear reactor on the American base serves as the power source for the filmʼs
monsters once they escape Walgateʼs mind, but crucially it is the British professor whose
thoughts take on physical form and corrupt the science performed at the US facility.
42Tudor, Andrew. 1989. Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of Horror. Oxford: Basil
Blackwell Ltd. p.42.
43 Ibid.
44Hendershot, Cyndy. 1999. Paranoia, the Bomb and 1950s Science Fiction Films. Bowling
Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. p.23.
45Stacey, Jackie. 1994. Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship. London:
Routledge. pp.57-58.
46 Warren, Bill. 1982. Keep Watching the Skies!, Vol.1. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. p.257.
47 Ibid. p.158.
48 A few 1950s science fiction films from America display a much more developed concern for
internationalism, the most prominent example of which is The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).
However, significant Americo-centricity is still evident in more recent US science fiction cinema,
notably in Independence Day (1996).
49
See, for example, Anon. 1 November 1957. ʻNobel Prize for British Chemistʼ, The Manchester
Guardian. p.3.
50Ship of the Future. 12 June 1958. British Movietone News. Commentator: Geoffrey Sumner.
Issue no. 1514A. UK.
51 This Car is History. 5 May 1958. Pathé News. Camera: Pat Whitaker. Issue no. 58/36. UK.
52 The Vital Vaccine. 3 June 1957. Pathé News. Camera: Pat Whitaker. Issue no. 57/45. UK.
53999ʼs New Home. 3 January 1957. Pathé News. Camera: Cedric Baynes and Pat Whitaker.
Issue no. 57/2. UK.
54 House of Ideas. 3 June 1957. Pathé News. Camera: Pat Whitaker. Issue no. 57/45. UK.
55
Listening to the Stars. 27 June 1957. Pathé News. Camera: Pat Whitaker. Issue no. 57/52.
UK.
56Bank on the Telly. 9 November 1959. British Movietone News. Camera: Godfrey Kenneth
Hanshaw. Comentator: Geoffrey Sumner. Issue no. 1588. UK.
57A Telly Copper. 6 January 1958. British Movietone News. Camera: David W. Samuelson.
Commentator: Geoffrey Sumner. Issue no. 1492. UK.

252
58An Eye on Your Wheels. 12 January 1959. British Movietone News. Camera: Samuelson.
Commentator: Geoffrey Sumner. Issue no. 1545. UK.
59Roberts, Graham and Heather Wallis. 2007. ʻBritain: Meet Mr Lucifer: British Cinema Under
the Spell of TVʼ, in Ostrowska and Roberts (2007: 6-24). p.7.
60Rockets for BBC. 25 November 1957. British Movietone News. Camera: Phil John Turner and
Len Waldorf. Commentator: Geoffrey Sumner. Issue no. 1486. UK.
61TV Camera Helps Building. 13 April 1959. British Pathé. Commentator: David De Keyser.
Issue no. 224. UK.
62 Vieth, Errol. 2001. Screening Science: Contexts, Texts, and Science in Fifties Science Fiction
Films. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. pp.38-39.
63 Anon. 18 October 1952. ʻBud and Lou Meet the Ladiesʼ, Picturegoer. p.17.
64Player, Ernie. 11 February 1956. ʻThe Monster is a Load of Tripe...and Confidentially Thatʼs
Just What it isʼ, Picturegoer. p.11.
65 Marlowe, David. 3 January 1953. ʻNow Weʼre Shooting Stars into Spaceʼ, Picturegoer. p.17.
66 Anon. 18 June 1955. ʻ20,000 Leagues Under the Seaʼ, Picturegoer. p.28.
67 Anon. 28 June 1952b. ʻFlight to Marsʼ, Picturegoer. p.19.
68Pierson, Michele. 2002. Special Effects: Still in Search of Wonder. New York, NY: Columbia
University Press. p.21.
69 Ibid.
70 Ibid.
71Harryhausen, Ray and Tony Dalton. 2003. Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life. London:
Aurum Press. p.80.
72Daugherty, John D. 2004. Exploration: Themes of Science Fiction, A Brief Guide. Victoria,
B.C.: Trafford. p.16; Anon. 13 July 1957. ʻEarth vs. the Flying Saucersʼ, Picturegoer. p.16.
73 Lucanio, Patrick. 1987. Them or Us. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. pp.36-37.
74 As David Butler has noted, Harryhausenʼs stop motion animation was still receiving significant
attention in 1958. In that year, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad placed it at the forefront of the
filmʼs advertising campaign, assigning it the exciting name ʻDYNAMATIONʼ. Of course, this film
uses the same types of techniques that were seen in Flying Saucers, but by providing them with
a new name Columbia Pictures attempted to recapture the excitement of Harryhausenʼs earlier
work. For a discussion of the role of Harryhausenʼs effects work in The Seventh Voyage of
Sinbad, see Butler, David. 2010. Fantasy Cinema: Impossible Worlds on Screen. London:
Wallflower Press. p.77.
75Johnson, John. 1996. Cheap Tricks and Class Acts: Special Effects, Makeup and Stunts from
the Films of the Fantastic Fifties. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. p.197.
76Kendrick, James. 2009. Hollywood Bloodshed: Violence in 1980s American Cinema.
Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. p.42.
77Weaver, Tom. 2006. Interviews with Science Fiction and Horror Movie Makers: Writers,
Producers, Directors, Actors, Moguls and Makeup. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. p.178.
78 Anon. 22 November 1958. ʻFiend Without a Faceʼ, Picturegoer. p.15.
79 Johnson. Cheap Tricks and Class Acts. p.71.
80 Hinxman, Margaret. 9 May 1953. ʻWhat a War and What a Fake!ʼ, Picturegoer. p.12.
253
81 Ibid.
82 Ibid. p.13.
83 Anon. 4 April 1953. ʻNew Films in London, The Manchester Guardian. p.3.
84 Anon. 22 October 1955. ʻCreature From the Black Lagoonʼ, Picture Show. p.10.
85 Anon. November 1961. ʻGorgoʼ, Monthly Film Bulletin. Vol.28, No.339. BFI. p.155.
86 Bwana Devil was released in 1952 in America and in 1953 in Britain. Because the main text of
this thesis provides British release dates, it is necessary to note that 3D films began circulating
in the US from 1952.
87 P.E. November 1956. ʻ3-D? Donʼt Mention that Word...ʼ, Photoplay. Vol.7, No.11. p.15.
88 Zec, Donald. 24 March 1953. ʻNew Anglesʼ, The Daily Mirror. p.4.
89Bordwell, David. 1985. ʻWidescreen Processes and Stereophonic Soundʼ, in Bordwell, David,
Staiger and Thompson (1985: 358-364). p.358.
90 Maltby, Richard. 2003. Hollywood Cinema. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. p.251.
91 Maltby. Hollywood Cinema. p.235.
92Halliwell, Martin. 2007. American Culture in the 1950s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press. p.150.
93 Ibid.
94 See, for example, Anon. ʻ20,000 Leagues Under the Seaʼ. p.28.
95 Vieth. Screening Science. pp.38-39.
96 Vieth. Screening Science. p.42.
97Noonan. Women Scientists in Fifties Science Fiction Films. p.6; Jancovich. Rational Fears. p.
27.

254
 Conclusion

! In the Introduction this thesis explained its aim to explore the specificity

of the British reception history of 1950s science fiction cinema. In order to do

this, it has focused on the two key themes that have dominated criticism of the

genre during this period, namely the Other and science, and has reframed them

through the meanings that they adopted in Britain. It has now become clear that

these core elements were essentially polysemic and so were able to be

understood in relation to a series of national debates. Section A showed that the

figure of the Other could give voice to a range of attitudes about two particular

British concerns. Chapter Two showed that, while the Other in 1950s

depersonalisation narratives has most frequently been interpreted as a

representation of American fears of Soviet brainwashing, in Britain it was able to

articulate comparable but differently inflected fears of communist infiltration and

also sympathies towards and tolerance of communists. Chapter Three

suggested that the figure of the alien Other was also available for interpretation

in Britain in an entirely different manner, since it could both support and

challenge various aspects of the British debate about race and immigration that

took place in the aftermath of the 1958 Notting Hill riots. Section B showed that

science was equally as flexible a signifier as the Other. Chapter Four

demonstrated that numerous creature features found their meanings inflected

by differing attitudes towards nuclear technology that were present in 1950s

Britain, while Chapter Five showed that the depiction of science itself allowed

science fiction films to be interpreted through a number of nationally specific

debates. In this regard, it is clear that both of the significant themes in 1950s

science fiction cinema explored by this thesis carried a variety of meanings in

255
Britain as a result of their intersection with a range of different attitudes to a

number of significant public debates.

! In light of this evidence it is perhaps worth restating Barry Keith Grantʼs

claim that Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) employed a ʻcentral metaphor

for the monstrous that...is sufficiently flexible to accommodate multiple

interpretationsʼ.1 As the analysis performed in the previous chapters shows, the

malleability of Body Snatchersʼ metaphors is something that it shares in

common with many science fiction films of this era. Both science and the alien

Other, two of the most common motifs of British and American 1950s science

fiction films, were equally flexible and open to multiple interpretations. They

could be read in a number of different ways depending on the discursive

surround within which they were situated, enabling them to acquire a variety of

meanings both from audiences in different countries and from different sections

of a single national audience. As such, the arguments presented here have

shown that the British reception history of 1950s science fiction cinema was

both unique, in that it relied on a series of debates that emerged out of Britainʼs

national circumstances and which were not reproduced identically elsewhere,

and also varied, because it encompassed the responses of a diverse body of

people with a wealth of different points of view.

! Moreover, certain common themes have emerged across the analyses

performed in the chapters of this thesis that further develop our understanding

of the specificity of the British reception of 1950s science fiction cinema by

making it possible to differentiate it from the American response to the genre.

This can be done in two ways. The first of these emphasises the fact that, even

when Britons and Americans were able to make sense of 1950s science fiction

in relation to the same topics, such as nuclear science or communism, the

256
variations in these public debates between the two countries ensured that the

possible resultant readings of the genre were not identical. This was

demonstrated by the first halves of Chapters Two and Four, for example, where

I argued that, even though British readings of these films were not always wildly

dissimilar to those available in America, they were derived from differently

articulated anxieties. Chapter Two suggested that Peter Biskindʼs claim that

ʻpossession by [alien] pods – mind stealing, brain eating and body snatching –

had the added advantage of being an overt metaphor for Communist

brainwashingʼ in America was, to an extent, also true in Britain.2 However, the

fear of communist infiltration in Britain focused on the vulnerability of the

Establishment rather than the community, giving this threat a unique inflection

that has not been evident in readings of 1950s science fiction films produced in

the United States. Consequently, the metaphor that Biskind argues allowed

aliens to stand in for communists in the American imagination was also relevant

in Britain but, because the danger of communism was perceived differently on

both sides of the Atlantic, the range of potential readings of these films was not

the same in the two countries. In this sense, similar interpretative processes

were possible in both Britain and America, but subtle variations in the debates

about communism held in these countries ensured that the interpretations of

1950s science fiction films that could arise were often very different indeed.

! This is an idea that also emerges from the findings presented in the first

half of Chapter Four. While both Americans and Britons feared their annihilation

at the hands of the Soviet nuclear weapons programme, this threat too was

articulated differently in the two countries, for example through claims that

Britons were more vulnerable to a Soviet attack as a result of their countryʼs

geography and housing stock.3 Just as the British inflection of fears of Soviet

257
infiltration allowed for the production of particular British readings of the alien

Other, so too did Britainʼs unique relationship to nuclear weaponry, alongside

recent memories of the Blitz, allow its citizens access to readings of films about

radioactive monsters that were not available in quite the same form to American

audiences. Chapter Two and Chapter Four thus both provide evidence that,

even when the same types of public anxieties were raised by 1950s science

fiction cinema in Britain and America, the differences between the two countriesʼ

national relationships to these issues meant that the interpretations of these

films that were available were never identical.

! The second way in which this thesis has differentiated the British

reception of 1950s science fiction cinema from the American response to the

genre is by indicating that these films were open to interpretation in Britain in

light of debates that were significant in that country, but which were of little

concern in the United States. This can be demonstrated by tracing the

connections between Chapters Three and Five. Chapter Three argued that both

pro- and anti-immigration debates, sparked by the arrival of workers from former

and current British colonies in response to post-war labour shortages, could

have inflected British interpretations of 1950s alien encounter films. This is

important because significant post-war immigration did not begin in America

until the 1960s, suggesting that these readings of the eraʼs science fiction

cinema would not necessarily have occurred to contemporary US audiences.

Chapter Five suggested that the depiction of science in films from across the

genre reflected British hopes and fears about the nationʼs imperial decline, its

relationship to Americaʼs expanding influence in Europe and the deployment of

new scientific innovations. Each of these debates arose out of particular British

historical circumstances, be they humiliation at Suez or the increasing presence

258
of technology in British society. The issues discussed in Chapters Three and

Five consequently mattered in Britain in a way that they did not necessarily

matter abroad and so their inflection of 1950s science fiction cinema was

unique to the country.

! Chapters Two and Four have shown that British audiences had the

potential to read these films in light of the same issues as their American

counterparts and yet discover different meanings in them, while Chapters Three

and Five have indicated that specifically British issues were also able to shape

the interpretation of the genre. This thesis has consequently demonstrated a

distinct British reception history of 1950s science fiction films and has provided

some suggestion of its character. This casts new light on the ʻcritical orthodoxyʼ

that Lincoln Geraghty has suggested dominates scholarship on 1950s US

science fiction cinema.4 As discussed earlier in this thesis, both he and Mark

Jancovich have indicated that authors have repeatedly stressed similar

interpretations of these films.5 In Chapter One I outlined the nature of this

orthodoxy, suggesting that it has taken the form of a loose consensus behind

the idea that 1950s American science fiction films reflected US fears of

communism and the nuclear bomb. I also drew attention to the alternatives that

have been offered to these readings by authors such as M. Keith Booker, Philip

L. Gianos, Barry Keith Grant, Mark Jancovich, Bonnie Noonan and Patrick

Lucanio.6 These scholars have used a number of critical frameworks to broaden

our understanding of the range of meanings that 1950s science fiction films can

hold. This thesis has continued their work by suggesting another means of

approaching the genre. By showing that science fiction cinema was open to

different readings in 1950s Britain than it was in the United States, this project

has further developed the range of ways in which we can understand these

259
films. This is not intended as a challenge to or a criticism of the studies that

constitute Geraghtyʼs orthodoxy, since my research cannot speak to the

responses of the American audiences or the US production contexts that

predominantly interest those authors. Instead, it represents an attempt to

deepen our knowledge in this field by offering an alternative account of the

genreʼs history during the 1950s through the demonstration of the specificity of

its reception in Britain.

! Rather than limiting its discussion to US science fiction films, this thesis

has also addressed the British productions that were screened alongside them.

In this regard, my work also sits in dialogue with existing scholarship on the

British science fiction cinema of this era. Authors such as Peter Hutchings, Ian

Conrich, Sarah Street, Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane have identified a

number of ways in which British contexts of production shaped the content of

the genre.7 This thesis has expanded on these studies by examining British

science fiction films from a different angle, exploring their contexts of reception.

As has become clear, the observations that I have made about the flexibility of

the metaphors employed by the genre during this period are as true of these

British productions as they are of their American counterparts. These were also

films that were able to engage with a wide variety of public debates in Britain,

both challenging and supporting the views of their audiences. Of course, there

were differences in the ways in which domestic and American science fiction

films were received in Britain, a topic that is discussed further below, but this

thesis has also shown that, in many ways, the genre sustained its polysemic

nature across films from both of the countries that dominated its production

during the 1950s. Both British and American films have, in each of the chapters

presented here, been shown to be capable of addressing a wealth of public

260
concerns in a range of different ways, suggesting that this was a prominent

feature of the genre as a whole as it was screened in Britain at this time.

! The potential interplay between existing work on the production contexts

of British 1950s science fiction cinema and the evidence of the domestic

reception history of these films provided by this thesis suggests that it might

now be possible to produce a more holistic account of the genre in Britain

during this period. Both areas of study are concerned with the ways in which

British science fiction films intersected with 1950s public debates, albeit that

they explore this interaction at different sites. Many of the topics examined in

this thesis, such as nuclear science and Britainʼs imperial decline, are also

discussed in this earlier work, as noted in Chapter One. By situating the current

study alongside those of the scholars mentioned above, some indication of the

relationship between the production and reception of these films in Britain might

begin to emerge. Although this conclusion is not the place to begin such an

analysis, it is certainly worth noting that this thesis opens up broader avenues of

enquiry into the place that science fiction cinema occupied in 1950s Britain and

suggests the possibility of new ways of considering the relationship between the

country and its genre films.

! Furthermore, this thesis also provides a means by which the

globalisation of American readings of 1950s science fiction cinema can be

resisted. As I suggested in the Introduction and Chapter One, the tendency in

popular discussion not to distinguish between the British and American

reception of these films might well have been caused by the overwhelming

focus of scholarly debate about the genre during this period on American films

and by the relatively concise nature of the research on their British cousins.

While this thesis has examined an equal number of British and US productions,

261
and so cannot claim to have gone any way towards redressing this imbalance, it

has exposed the inadequacy of using Americo-centric readings of 1950s

science fiction films to address their British reception. Through demonstrating

the potential for British audiences to understand both domestic and foreign

science fiction films in ways that might not necessarily have occurred to cinema-

goers in America, this project has shown that there exists a British reception

history of the genre that is distinct from its US counterpart. In enabling such

arguments to be made, this study encourages the disruption of the globalisation

of US readings of the eraʼs science fiction cinema and challenges its

underpinning presumption that western countries received these films in a

largely uniform manner during the 1950s.

! In making this contribution, however, this thesis has also raised a number

of further questions about 1950s science fiction cinema in an international

context. For example, although I have provided some sense of the British

reception of the films of the two countries that dominated the genre during this

period, namely Britain and America, I have only been able to provide a few

insights into the impact of the differences between these national science fiction

cinemas. Chapter Fiveʼs discussion of American actors in British productions

and British films that attempted to hide their national origins, such as Fiend

Without a Face (1958), suggested some of the ways in which the interpretation

of British and American films differed in Britain, but since this has not been the

primary focus of this work it has only occasionally been of significant concern.

Mark Jancovich and Derek Johnston have identified several important ways in

which the science fiction of these two countries, both on film and television,

differed during this period, but the consequences of this for the British reception

262
history of the genre have only been touched on in this project.8 Consequently,

there remains scope for further research in this area.

! Questions could also be asked about the relationship between these

films and other countries besides Britain and America. The arguments

presented above have shown that the meanings generated by science fiction

films of this period were largely dependent on reception contexts that varied,

sometimes radically so, between different countries. This draws attention to the

absent histories of the reception of 1950s science fiction cinema in a long list of

countries within which these films were screened.9 As yet, there has been no

indication of the ways in which these British and American films were

understood in France, Belgium, Austria, Italy, West Germany, Portugal, Sweden,

Finland, Norway, Denmark, Turkey and Japan, to name but a few of the nations

to which they were exported. Just as the reception history of these films in

Britain has not previously been explored in depth, the same is also largely true

of these aforementioned countries. While this thesis has gone some way

towards guarding against the use of American readings of 1950s science fiction

cinema to address its British reception, it cannot provide sufficient evidence that

a similarly unique reception history also exited in other countries. This is

certainly likely given the importance of national contexts to the reception of the

genre, as highlighted in the preceding chapters, but further research is

necessary before firm claims of this nature can be made.

! As well as demonstrating the need for this type of broad, internationally

focused research, the conclusions of this thesis also suggest that a deeper,

nationally focused investigation of the ways in which the globalisation of

memory has obscured other British film histories might be advantageous. If

American readings of 1950s science fiction cinema have tended to disguise

263
British interpretations of these films, other genres in other eras might also have

undergone a similar process. If the pleasures of the western genre are often

understood in terms of their offering a national founding myth to American

audiences, as Gary J. Hausladen argues, then questions could be asked about

the draw that they held for British cinema-goers who lived in a country that had

a lengthy national history, an established mythology and different relationships

with space, the wilderness and the gun.10 One could similarly enquire about

how 1970s and 1980s slasher films, which created threat in part by subverting

the familiarity of American suburbia, thrilled audiences in the British countryside.

In exposing the danger posed by the globalisation of cinema memory to the

preservation of localised histories of film reception, this thesis acts as a call for

further investigation of British historical audiences and their interpretation of

other genres in order that the specificity of these cinematic encounters might

not be lost or obscured.

! Alongside its original contribution to the study of the British reception

history of 1950s science fiction cinema, this thesis has also demonstrated the

key role that the New Film History can play in attempts to resist the dangers that

Fromm associated with pseudo thought. For Fromm, the uncritical acceptance

of received wisdom, represented in this thesis by the globalisation of Americo-

centric interpretations of 1950s science fiction films, constituted a submission to

an external authority, here embodied by Geraghtyʼs critical orthodoxy, and a

surrender of our capacity for critical thinking through ʻa compulsive conforming

to accepted patternsʼ of thought.11 This thesis has revealed that the New Film

Historyʼs interest in the different relationships that films can have with their

audiences in varied reception contexts provides a means of breaking out of

these ʻaccepted patternsʼ of thought by considering the multiple, often diverse

264
meanings that a film can possess.12 In so doing it encourages the dismissal of

the types of pseudo thought that have established and defended authoritative or

dominant interpretations of films and genres. Academics such as Sarah Street,

Sue Harper and James Chapman have spearheaded recent developments in

this process that have shown how the contexts of a filmʼs reception can play a

central role in determining its meaning for an audience.13 This thesis has built

on their work by highlighting the potential of this approach to challenge critical

orthodoxies within film history and, through this, to redress those areas in which

the discipline continues to rely on pseudo thought and supposition. This project

thus contributes to the current critical movement towards reconsidering the

nature and purpose of film history that the New Film History represents.

1 Grant, Barry Keith. 2010. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. London: BFI. pp.8-9.
2 Biskind, Peter. 2001. Seeing is Believing. London: Bloomsbury. p.111 and 140.
3Davis, Tracy C. 2007. States of Emergency: Cold War Nuclear Civil Defense. Durham, NC:
Duke University Press. p.15.
4 Geraghty, Lincoln. 2009. American Science Fiction Film and Television. Oxford: Berg. p.20.
5Ibid.; Jancovich, Mark. 1996. Rational Fears: American Horror in the 1950s. Manchester:
Manchester University Press. p.17.
6Booker, M. Keith. 2006. Alternate Americas: Science Fiction Film and American Culture.
Westport, CT: Praeger. p.66; Gianos, Phillip L. 1998. Politics and Politicians in American Film.
Westport, CT: Praeger. p.140; Grant. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. p.68; Jancovich. Rational
Fears; Noonan, Bonnie. 2005. Women Scientists in Fifties Science Fiction Films. Jefferson, NC:
McFarland; Lucanio, Patrick. 1987. Them or Us. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
7 Hutchings, Peter. 1999. ʻ“Weʼre the Martians Now”: British SF Invasion Fantasies of the 1950s
and 1960sʼ, in Hunter (1999b: 33-47); Hutchings, Peter. 1993. Hammer and Beyond: The British
Horror Film. Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp.37-50; Conrich, Ian. 1999. ʻTrashing
London: The British Colossal Creature Film and Fantasies of Mass Destructionʼ, in Hunter
(1999b: 88-98); Street, Sarah. 2009. British National Cinema. 2nd edn. Abingdon: Routledge. p.
88; Chibnall, Steve. 1999. ʻAlien Women: The Politics of Sexual Difference in British SF Pulp
Cinemaʼ, in Hunter (1999b: 88-98); Chibnall, Steve and Brian McFarlane. 2009. The British ʻBʼ
Film. London: BFI. pp.282-284.
8Jancovich, Mark and Derek Johnston. 2009. ʻFilm and Television, the 1950sʼ, in Bould, Butler,
Roberts and Vint (2009: 71-79).
9 These histories are certainly absent from English language scholarship, but it is possible that
they have been provided elsewhere.
10 Hausladen, Gary J. 2003b. ʻWhere the Cowboy Rides Away: Mythic Places for Western Filmʼ,
in Hausladen (2003a: 296-318). p.310.
265
11 Geraghty. American Science Fiction Film and Television. p.20; Fromm, Erich. 2009. The Fear
of Freedom. Abingdon: Routledge, 2009. (Originally published in 1942). p.116.
12 Fromm. The Fear of Freedom. p.116.
13Street, Sarah. 2002. Transatlantic Crossings: British Feature Films in the United States.
London: Continuum International; Harper, Sue. 2007. ʻHistory and Representation: The Case of
1970s British Cinemaʼ, in Chapman, Glancy and Harper (2007b: 27-40); Chapman, James.
2007. ʻ“This Ship is England”: History, Politics and National Identity in Master and Commander:
The Far Side of the World (2003)ʼ, in Chapman, Glancy and Harper (2007b: 55-68).

266
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! Performanceʼ, in Buxton, Chapman and Temple (1998: 69-98).

Thompson, Noel B. W. 10 September 1958. ʻHousing and Race Friction: The

! Coloured Tenantʼ, The Manchester Guardian. p.6.

Thussu, Daya Kishan. 2007a. ʻMapping Global Media Flow and Contra-Flowʼ, in
! Thussu (2007b: 10-29).

Thussu, Daya Kishan, (ed.) 2007b. Media on the Move: Global Flow and
# Contra-Flow Abingdon: Routledge.

Tsutsui, William M. 2007. ʻLooking Straight at Them!: Understanding the Big

! Bug Movies of the 1950sʼ, Environmental History. Vol.12, No.2. April. pp.
! 237-253.

Tudor, Andrew. 1989. Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the
# Horror Movie. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Turner, Graeme. 1999. Film as Social Practice. 3rd edn. London: Routledge.

Turner, Graeme. 2002. The Film Cultures Reader. Abingdon: Routledge.

Vieth, Errol. 2001. Screening Science: Contexts, Texts, and Science in Fifties
# Science Fiction Films. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.

Vizzini, Bryan E. 2009. ʻCold War Fears, Cold War Passions: Conservatives and
! Liberals Square Off in 1950s Science Fictionʼ, Quarterly Review of Film
# and Video. Vol.26, No.1. January. pp.28-39.

Warren, Bill. 1982. Keep Watching the Skies!, Vol.1. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

Weaver, Tom. 1996. Monsters, Mutants and Heavenly Creatures: Confessions

# of 14 Classic Sci-Fi/Horrormeisters!. Baltimore, MD: Midnight Marquee.

Weaver, Tom. 2002. Science Fiction Confidential. Jefferson, NC: MacFarland.

Weaver, Tom. 2006. Interviews with Science Fiction and Horror Movie Makers:
# Writers, Producers, Directors, Actors, Moguls and Makeup. Jefferson,
! NC: McFarland.

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Webb, John de Vere. 26 April 1952. Published letter, Picturegoer. p.3.

Webster, Wendy. 2005. Englishness and Empire 1939-1965. Oxford: Oxford

! University Press.

Webster, Wendy. 2009. ʻShorn Women, Rubble Women and Military Heroes:
! Gender, National Identity and the Second World War in Britain, France
! and Germany, 1944-1948ʼ, in Rorato and Saunders (2009: 51-70).

Whitaker, Reg. 2000. ʻCold War Alchemy: How America, Britain and Canada
! Transformed Espionage into Subversionʼ, in Stafford and Jeffreys-Jones
! (2000: 177-210).

Willis, Charles A. 2005. America in the 1950s. New York, NY: Facts on File.

Wojcik, Daniel. 1997. The End of the World as We Know It: Faith, Fatalism, and
# Apocalypse in America. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Young, Lola. 1996. Fear of the Dark: ʻRaceʼ, Gender and Sexuality in the
# Cinema. Abingdon: Routledge.

Young, William H. and Nancy K. Young. 2004. American Popular Culture

# Through History: The 1950s. Westport, CT: Greenwood.

Zec, Donald. 24 March 1953. ʻNew Anglesʼ, The Daily Mirror. p.4.

Zulueta, Philip de. 24 April 1958. Letter addressed to Prime Minister Harold
! Macmillan. National Archives file PREM 11/2778.

290
 Media Sources

! Newsreels and Information Films

999ʼs New Home. 3 January 1957. Pathé News. Camera: Cedric Baynes and
! Pat Whitaker. Issue no. 57/2. UK.

An Eye on Your Wheels. 12 January 1959. British Movietone News. Camera:

! Samuelson. Commentator: Geoffrey Sumner. Issue no. 1545. UK.

Another Name for Power. 1959. RHR in association with the Film Producers
! Guild. North West Film Archive, film no. 2791. UK.

A Telly Copper. 6 January 1958. British Movietone News. Camera: David W.

! Samuelson. Commentator: Geoffrey Sumner. Issue no. 1492. UK.

Atomic Power from Britain – Italy. 4 December 1958. Pathé News and Incom.
! Issue no. 58/97. UK and Italy.

Bank on the Telly. 9 November 1959. British Movietone News. Camera: Godfrey
! Kenneth Hanshaw. Comentator: Geoffrey Sumner. Issue no. 1588. UK.

County Borough of Preston Civil Defence Exercise “Prestonian”. 1959. Preston

! Borough Police. North West Film Archive, film no. 3160. UK.

Full Power. 1958. United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and Ace Films.
! North West Film Archive, film no. 467. UK.

House of Ideas. 3 June 1957. Pathé News. Camera: Pat Whitaker. Issue no.
! 57/45. UK.

Listening to the Stars. 27 June 1957. Pathé News. Camera: Pat Whitaker. Issue
! no. 57/52. UK.

Rockets for BBC. 25 November 1957. British Movietone News. Camera: Phil
! John Turner and Len Waldorf. Commentator: Geoffrey Sumner. Issue no.
! 1486. UK.

291
Shameful Incident. 4 September 1958. Pathé News. Camera: Pat Whitaker.
! Issue no. 58/71. UK.

Ship of the Future. 12 June 1958. British Movietone News. Commentator:

! Geoffrey Sumner. Issue no. 1514A. UK.

The Vital Vaccine. 3 June 1957. Pathé News. Camera: Pat Whitaker. Issue no.
! 57/45. UK.

This Car is History. 5 May 1958. Pathé News. Camera: Pat Whitaker. Issue no.
! 58/36. UK.

Today Tomorrow. Unspecified date between 1955 and 1959. National Film
! Agency in Manchester. North West Film Archive, film no. 3854. UK.

TV Camera Helps Building. 13 April 1959. British Pathé. Commentator: David

! De Keyser. Issue no. 224. UK.

Unilever Magazine No.1. c.1950. Editorial Film Production and Lintas. North
! West Film Archive, film no. 324. UK.

! Television Programmes

Doomsday for Dyson. 10 March 1958. Granada Television. Dir. Silvio

! Narizzano. Written by J. B. Priestley. UK.

See It Now, ʻA Report on Senator Joeseph R. McCarthyʼ. 9 March 1954.

! Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). Dir. Don Hewitt. Prod. Joseph
! Wershba. Hosted by Edward R. Murrow. USA.

See It Now, ʻSenator McCarthyʼ. 6 April 1954. Columbia Broadcasting System

! (CBS). Dir. Don Hewitt. Prod. Joseph Wershba. Hosted by Edward R.
! Murrow. USA.

The Quatermass Experiment. 18 July 1953 - 22 August 1953. BBC. Dir.

! Rudolph Cartier. Prod. Rudolph Cartier. Written by Nigel Neale. UK.

292
Quatermass II. 22 October 1955 - 26 November 1955. BBC. Dir. Rudolph
! Cartier. Prod. Rudolph Cartier. Written by Nigel Neale. UK.

Quatermass and the Pit. 22 December 1958 - 26 January 1959. BBC. Dir.
! Rudolph Cartier. Prod. Rudolph Cartier. Written by Nigel Neale. UK.

! Radio Series

The Soviet View. 1948-1958. BBC Third Programme. UK.

! DVD Special Features

ʻThe Universe According to Universalʼ. Dir. David J. Skal. It Came From Outer
# Space. 1953. Dir. Jack Arnold. Prod. William Alland. DVD. 2002.
! Universal Studios. USA.

ʻThe War Game - The Controversyʼ. Dir. Patrick Murphy. The War Game. 1965.
! Dir. Peter Watkins. Prod. Peter Watkins. DVD. 2003. BFI. UK.

293
 Filmography

Note: Where the British release date of a film differs from its year of production,
the British release date has also been provided.

1984. 1956. Dir. Michael Anderson. Prod. N. Peter Rathvon. Holiday Film
! Productions Ltd. UK.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. 1954. Dir. Richard Fleischer. Prod. Walt Disney
! (uncredited). Buena Vista. USA. British release: 1955.

Abbott and Costello Go to Mars. 1953. Dir. Charles Lamont. Prod. Howard
! Christie. Universal International Pictures. USA.

Alien: Resurrection. 1997. Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Prod. Gordon Carroll, David
! Giler, Walter Hill and Bill Badalato. Brandywine Productions. USA.

An American in Paris. 1951. Dir. Vincente Minnelli. Prod. Arthur Freed. MGM.
! USA.

Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (UK: Lift to the Scaffold, US: Elevator to the
# Gallows). 1958. Dir. Louis Malle. Prod. Jean Thuillier. Nouvelles Éditions
! de Films. France. British release: 1960.

A Trip to the Moon. 1902. Dir. Georges Méliès. Prod. Georges Méliès. Gaston
! Méliès Films. France.

Attack of the Crab Monsters. 1957. Dir. Roger Corman. Prod. Roger Corman.
! Allied Artists. USA.

Beginning of the End. 1957. Dir. Bert I. Gordon. Prod. Bert I. Gordon. Republic
! Pictures. USA. British release: 1958.

Behemoth the Sea Monster. 1959. Dir. Eugène Lourié. Prod. David Diamond
! and Ted Lloyd. Allied Artists. UK.

Bwana Devil. 1952. Dir. Arch Oboler. Prod. Arch Oboler. Arch Oboler
! Productions. USA. British release: 1953.

294
Cat-Women of the Moon. 1953. Dir. Arthur Hilton. Prod. Jack Rabin and Al
! Zimbalist. Z-M Productions. USA.

Creature from the Black Lagoon. 1954. Dir. Jack Arnold. Prod. William Alland.
! Universal International Pictures. USA.

Cult of the Cobra. 1955. Dir. Francis D. Lyon. Prod. Howard Pine. Universal
! International Pictures. USA.

Devil Girl from Mars. 1954. Dir. David MacDonald. Prod. Edward J. Danziger
! and Harry Lee Danziger. Danziger Productions. UK.

Dracula. 1958. Dir. Terence Fisher. Prod. Anthony Hinds. Hammer Film
! Productions. UK.

Earth vs the Flying Saucers. 1956. Dir. Fred F. Sears. Prod. Charles H. Schneer
! and Sam Katzman. Columbia Pictures. USA.

Fiend Without a Face. 1958. Dir. Arthur Crabtree. Prod. John Croydon. Eros
! Films. UK.

Fire Maidens from Outer Space. 1956. Dir. Cy Roth. Prod. Cy Roth. Eros Films.
! UK.

Flight to Mars. 1951. Dir. Lesley Selander. Prod. Walter Mirisch. Monogram
! Pictures. USA.

Forbidden Planet. 1956. Dir. Fred M. Wilcox. Prod. Nicholad Nayfack. MGM.
! USA.

Four Sided Triangle. 1953. Dir. Terence Fisher. Prod. Michael Carreras.
! Hammer Film Productions. UK.

Godzilla, King of the Monsters! 1956. Dir. Terry Morse and Ishirō Honda. Prod.
! Terry Turner and Joseph E. Levine. Jewell Enterprises Inc. USA/Japan.

Gog. 1954. Dir. Herbert L. Strock. Prod. Ivan Tors. Ivan Tors Productions. USA.

Gojira. 1954. Dir. Ishirō Honda. Prod. Tomoyuki Tanaka. Toho. Japan.

295
Gorgo. 1961. Dir. Eugène Lourié. Prod. Wilfred Eades and Herman King. King
! Brothers Productions. UK.

House of Wax. 1953. Dir. André de Toth. Prod. Bryan Foy. Warner Bros. USA.

I Married a Monster from Outer Space. 1958. Dir. Gene Fowler Jr. Prod. Gene
! Fowler Jr. Paramount Pictures. USA.

Independence Day. 1996. Dir. Roland Emmerich. Prod. Dean Devlin. Twentieth
! Century Fox. USA.

Invaders from Mars. 1953. Dir. William Cameron Menzies. Prod. Edward L.
! Alperson Jr. National Pictures Corporation. USA. British release: 1954.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers. 1956. Dir. Don Siegel. Prod. Walter Wanger.
! Allied Artists. USA.

Invasion of the Saucer Men. 1957. Dir. Edward Cahn. Prod. Robert J. Gurney
! Jr. and James H. Nicholson. American International Pictures. USA.

It Came from Beneath the Sea. 1955. Dir. Robert Gordon. Prod. Charles H.
! Schneer. Clover Production. USA.

It Came from Outer Space. 1953. Dir. Jack Arnold. Prod. William Alland.
! Universal Studios. USA.

It Conquered the World. 1956. Dir. Roger Corman. Prod. Roger Corman.
! Sunset Productions. USA.

It! The Terror from Beyond Space. 1958. Dir. Edward L. Cahn. Prod. Robert
! Kent. United Artists. USA.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth. 1959. Dir. Henry Levin. Prod. Charles
! Brackett. Twentieth Century Fox. USA.

King Kong. 1933. Dir. Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack. Prod.
! Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack and David O. Selznick. RKO
! Radio Pictures. USA.

296
Konga. 1961. Dir. John Lemont. Prod. Herman Cohen, Nathan Cohen and
! Stuart Levy. Merton Park Studios. UK.

Limelight. 1952. Dir. Charlie Chaplin. Prod. Charlie Chaplin. Celebrated Films
! Corp. USA.

Might Joe Young. 1949. Dir. Ernest B. Schoedsack. Prod. Merian C. Cooper.
! Argosy Pictures. USA.

Paris Blues. 1961. Dir. Martin Ritt. Prod. Sam Shaw. United Artists. USA.

Phantom from Space. 1953. Dir. W. Lee Wilder. Prod. W. Lee Wilder. Planet
! Filmplays. USA.

Quatermass II. 1957. Dir. Val Guest. Prod. Anthony Hinds. Hammer Film
! Productions. UK.

Queen of Outer Space. 1958. Dir. Edward Bernds. Prod. Ben Schwalb. Allied
! Artists. USA. British release: 1959.

Red Planet Mars. 1952. Dir. Harry Horner. Prod. Donald Hyde and Anthony
! Veiller. Melaby Pictures Corp. USA.

Return of the Fly. 1959. Dir. Edward Bernds. Prod. Bernard Glasser. Associated
! Producers. USA.

Revenge of the Creature. 1955. Dir. Jack Arnold. Prod. William Alland. Universal
! International Pictures. USA.

Robot Monster. 1953. Dir. Phil Tucker. Prod. Phil Tucker. Three Dimension
! Pictures. USA. British release: 1954.

Satanʼs Satellites. 1958. Dir. Fred C. Brannon. Prod. Franklin Adreon. Republic
! Pictures. USA. British release: 1959.

Spaceways. 1953. Dir. Terence Fisher. Prod. Michael Carreras. Hammer Film
! Productions. UK.

297
Superman and the Mole Men (a.k.a. Superman and the Strange People). 1951.
! Dir. Lee Sholem. Prod. Barney A. Sarecky. Lippert Pictures. USA. British
! release: 1952.

Tarantula. 1955. Dir. Jack Arnold. Prod. William Alland. Universal International
! Pictures. USA.

The Alligator People. 1959. Dir. Roy Del Ruth. Prod. Jack Leewood. Twentieth
! Century Fox. USA.

The Amazing Colossal Man. 1957. Dir. Bert I. Gordon. Prod. Bert I. Gordon,
! Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson. Malibu Productions. USA.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. 1953. Dir. Eugène Lourié. Prod. Jack Dietz
! and Hal E. Chester. Warner Bros. USA.

The Colossus of New York. 1958. Dir. Eugène Lourié. Prod. William Alland.
! Paramount Pictures. USA.

The Curse of Frankenstein. 1957. Dir. Terence Fisher. Prod. Anthony Hinds and
! Max Rosenberg. Hammer Film Productions. UK.

The Day of the Triffids. 1962. Dir. Steve Sekely. Prod. George Pitcher and Philip
! Yordan. Security Pictures Ltd. UK.

The Day the Earth Caught Fire. 1961. Dir. Val Guest. Prod. Val Guest and Frank
! Sherwin Green. Pax Films. UK.

The Day the Earth Stood Still. 1951. Dir. Robert Wise. Prod. Julian Blaustein.
! Twentieth Century Fox. USA.

The Day the World Ended. 1955. Dir. Roger Corman. Prod. Roger Corman.
! Golden State Productions. USA. British release: 1956.

The Drum (US: Drums). 1938. Dir. Zoltan Korda. Prod. Alexander Korda.
! London Films. UK.

The Four Feathers. 1939. Dir. Zoltan Korda. Prod. Alexander Korda. London
! Film Productions. UK.

298
The Giant Gila Monster. 1959. Dir. Ray Kellogg. Prod. Ken Curtis, B. R.
! McLendon and Gordon McLendon. Hollywood Pictures Corporation.
! USA.

The Incredible Shrinking Man. 1957. Dir. Jack Arnold. Prod. Albert Zugsmith.
! Universal International Pictures. USA.

Them! 1954. Dir. Gordon Douglas. Prod. David Weisbart. Warner Bros. USA

The Monster that Challenged the World. 1957. Dir. Arnold Laven. Prod. Arthur
! Gardner and Jules V. Levy. Gramercy Pictures. USA.

The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues. 1955. Dir. Dan Milner. Prod. Jack Milner
! and Dan Milner. Milner Brothers. USA. 1956.

The Power of Love. 1922. Dir. Nat G. Deverich and Harry K. Fairall. Prod. Harry
! K. Fairall. Haworth Pictures Corporation. USA.

The Private Life of Henry VIII. 1933. Dir. Alexander Korda. Prod. Alexander
! Korda. London Film Productions. UK.

The Quatermass Xperiment. 1955. Dir. Val Guest. Prod. Anthony Hinds.
! Hammer Film Productions. UK.

The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. 1958. Dir. Nathan H. Juran. Prod. Charles H.
! Schneer and Ray Harryhausen. Columbia Pictures. USA.

The Strange World of Planet X. 1957. Dir. Gilbert Gunn. Prod. George Maynard.
! Artistes Alliance Ltd. UK.

The Thing from Another World. 1951. Dir. Christian Nyby. Prod. Howard Hawks.
! Winchester Pictures Corporation. USA.

The Trollenberg Terror. 1958. Dir. Quentin Lawrence. Prod. Robert S. Baker and
! Monty Berman. Eros Films. UK.

The War Game. 1965. Dir. Peter Watkins. Prod. Peter Watkins. BBC. UK.

The War of the Worlds. 1953. Dir. Byron Haskin. Prod. George Pal. Paramount
! Pictures. USA.

299
The Woman Eater. 1958. Dir. Charles Saunders. Prod. Guido Coen. Fortress
! Film Productions Ltd. UK.

This Island Earth. 1955. Dir. Joesph M. Newman. Prod. William Alland.
! Universal International Pictures. USA.

Tobor the Great. 1954. Dir. Lee Sholem. Prod. Carl Dudley and Philip
! MacDonald. Dudley Pictures Corporation. USA.

When Worlds Collide. 1951. Dir. Rudolph Maté. Prod. George Pal. Paramount
! Pictures. USA.

World Without End. 1956. Dir. Edward Bernds. Prod. Richard G. Heermance.
! Allied Artists. USA.

X - The Unknown. 1956. Dir. Leslie Norman. Prod. Anthony Hinds. Hammer
! Film Productions. UK

300