It! The Terror from Beyond Space
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Edward L. Cahn
Marshall Thompson
Shawn Smith
Kim Spalding
Ann Doran
Dabbs Greer
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
In 1973, the United States Space Commission announces that a spaceship under the command of Van Heusen has been sent to rescue the first spacecraft to land on Mars, after receiving notification from its commander, Col. Edward Carruthers, that he is the lone survivor of his crew of nine. Under suspicion for murdering the crew, Ed is being brought back to Earth for a court-martial. On Mars, as the rescue ship prepares to blast off, an alien boards the ship through an open hatch and hides in the storage compartment. Van and most of the crew are wary of Ed's presence, doubting his story that while returning to the ship from a day of exploration, his crew was chased by an unidentified creature and subsequently disappeared in a sand storm. While working in the lower part of the ship, crew member Joe Keinholtz hears a strange noise and, upon investigating, is attacked and killed by the Martian. Later, after crew member Gino Finelli does not return from a trip to the lower deck, his brother Bob grows concerned and demands that Van and the others look for him. Below deck, the pale, limp body of Keinholtz is discovered, and Jack Purdue finds Gino barely alive, wedged in an air duct, but is threatened by the Martian before he can reach him. After Purdue escapes, Ed orders the hatch sealed and mined with grenades. The crew listens as the hatch rattles and the grenades explode, but afterward they are amazed when the sounds of the alien crashing about are heard over the radio speaker. After Van orders the men below to investigate, they find the lower deck smashed. When the alien attempts to jump out of a hatch, the men shoot him several times to no avail. Back on the upper deck, nurse Ann Anderson suggests they attack the creature with gas. The lower deck is flooded with fumes, but when Van opens the hatch to check the results, he is clawed by the alien. Nurse Mary Royce cannot immediately determine Keinholtz's cause of death, but an autopsy reveals that Keinholtz did not die from being crushed, but from all the fluid in his body being removed. After Mary's husband Eric suggests they electrocute the alien, Ed and crew member Jim Calder reach the deck below the alien by climbing outside and down the side of the ship. While the remaining crew make noises to distract the Martian, Ed and Calder rig the trap on the stairwell. The crew is dismayed when the Martian is caught as planned but barely scathed by the jolt. Angered by the attack, the creature attacks Calder, who is injured and urges Ed to escape without him. Calder holds off the creature's subsequent attacks with a blowtorch as Ed rejoins the others and plans another strike. Overwrought, Van accuses Ed of having abandoned Calder. Hearing the accusation over the ship's speaker, Calder refutes Van. Mary then reports to Ed that Purdue and Van have developed leukemia-like symptoms from their attacks and she has had to transfuse them with all the blood available on the main deck. As Ed decides that he and Eric must risk going below for more blood, Calder reports that the alien has taken Gino's body to the reactor room. Van orders the core be exposed in an attempt to irradiate the creature as Ed, Eric and Bob go to the lower storage area to get fresh blood. The radiation attack infuriates the Martian, who then attacks and kills Bob. The crew members flee to the top deck, certain that it is only a matter of time before they are all murdered by the alien. After Ed notices the high oxygen levels in the ship, Eric speculates that the thin air of Mars has provided the creature with strong lungs. Ed then orders the crew to don oxygen masks and drains the entire ship of oxygen, which at last kills the Martian. Back on earth, the Space Commission receives a request from Van to drop the charges against Ed and a warning from the remaining crew that Mars should remain off limits for all future expeditions.
Director
Edward L. Cahn
Cast
Marshall Thompson
Shawn Smith
Kim Spalding
Ann Doran
Dabbs Greer
Paul Langton
Robert Bice
Richard Benedict
Richard Hervey
Thom Carney
Ray Corrigan
Crew
Jerome Bixby
Ralph E. Black
Layne Britton
Robert Carlisle
William Glasgow
Ben Hersh
Robert E. Kent
Jack Masters
Al Overton
Kenneth Peach
George Rutter
Paul Sawtell
Herman Schoenbrun
Bert Shefter
Edward Small
Arthur Wasson
Grant Whytock
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It! The Terror from Beyond Space
It! The Terror from Beyond Space can be viewed as a conservative backlash against the accelerating space program of the late fifties since the title character is clearly not the sort of alien we want to bring back to Earth. Inside that scary costume is veteran stuntman Ray "Crash" Corrigan, who is the real star of this drive-in classic, directed by B-movie king Edward L. Cahn (The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake, 1959).
In an interview by Ted Okuda for Filmfax Magazine, special effects artist Bob Burns comments on his mentor, Paul Blaisdell, and the problems the latter encountered on the set of It! The Terror from Beyond Space: "Ray 'Crash' Corrigan played the monster, but he wouldn't come to Topanga - where Paul lived - to get measured for the suit, so Paul had to sculpt the head over his own plaster bust. When Paul completed the outfit, the body of the creature was okay because Corrigan had sent over a pair of his long underwear, which Paul built the suit over. But when they put the head on Corrigan, his bulbous chin stuck out through the monster's mouth, so the make-up man painted his chin to look like a tongue. Everybody thinks the monster has a tongue, but it doesn't - it's just that Corrigan's chin kept snapping through the mouth because his head was so much bigger than Paul's. And they made Paul cut the eyes out. Another example of studio indecision. The head of the production department told Paul that the monster 'has gotta have eyes in it.' Paul said, 'Okay, but they're not going to move.' But the head guy said, 'I want it to have eyes in it, and that's all there is to it!' So Paul made it that way. But when he took it down to the producer's office, he said, 'Those are the worst eyes I've ever seen - get those damned eyes out of there!' So, not being built for Corrigan's face anyway, it didn't fit real close when the eyes were removed. Paul took some latex and rubbered it in, at least trying to make it fit. Corrigan couldn't see anything half of the time. There's a scene where he's supposed to be looking up and actually lifts the head to readjust the eyeholes so he could see."
Unfortunately, It! The Terror from Beyond Space was the last film to feature a Paul Blaisdell monster suit, but if you like what you see, you might want to search out Blaisdell's creature creations for such drive-in faves as It Conquered the World (1956), The She-Creature (1956), and Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957).
Producer: Robert E. Kent, Edward Small
Director: Edward L. Cahn
Screenplay: Jerome Bixby
Art Direction: William Glasgow
Cinematography: Kenneth Peach
Costume Design: Jack Masters, Paul Blaisdell
Film Editing: Grant Whytock
Original Music: Paul Sawtell, Bert Shefter
Principal Cast: Marshall Thompson (Col. Edward Carruthers), Shirley Patterson (Ann Anderson), Kim Spalding (Col. Van Heusen), Ann Doran (Dr. Mary Royce), Dabbs Greer (Eric Royce), Paul Langton (Lt. James Calder).
BW-70m.
by Jeff Stafford
It! The Terror from Beyond Space
Quotes
Every bone in his body must be broken. But I'm not sure that's what killed him.- Mary Royce
Trivia
Notes
The working title of the film was It, The Vampire From Beyond Space.
Miscellaneous Notes
Released in United States March 1975
Released in United States Summer August 1958
Released in United States March 1975 (Shown at FILMEX: Los Angeles International Film Exposition (Science Fiction Movie Marathon - Selection of Trailers) March 13-26, 1975.)
Released in United States Summer August 1958