The 1953 American science fiction horror film It Came from Outer Space was Ray Bradbury’s first feature film project after doing several television episodes. He originated the story and wrote the treatment and although he did not write the final script, he received screen credit.

The story follows author and astronomer John Putnam, played by Richard Carlson. One night while stargazing with his fiancée Ellen Fields, played by Barbara Rush, John sees the crash of what he takes to be an exceptionally large meteor. Of course, he has to go poking around and discovers a crashed space ship. Although unsure, Ellen stands by him, but no one else believes him.

Soon strange things begin to happen. Two telephone line repairmen, Frank Daylon, played by Joe Sawyer, and George, played by Russell Johnson, disappear and return acting oddly. John trails them and discovers they are aliens from the crashed ship which have taken on the forms of Frank and George while holding the real men hostage. They need equipment and time to repair their ship. Unlike Invaders from Mars, which came out shortly before, the aliens are not there to deliberately harm humans, but crashed by accident on their way somewhere else. They have no particular interest in humans either good or bad. The actual forms of the aliens are gruesome monsters loathsome to human perception.

The aliens continue taking hostages and threaten to destroy them if anyone interferes with their agenda. It is then in John’s interest for other people not to believe him but it may now be too late. If only he had not been curious and insistent on being believed, much trouble could have been avoided.

Objectionable content is smoking, some violence in the form of fistfights, shooting with guns and a laser beam, and a fiery car crash. Most objectionable is the worst colorization job I have ever seen. I watched on Tubi because it was free and they made a terrible choice showing this version. The whole time the viewer is thinking, “How many times will the car change color in this scene and to what?” It was annoying and distracting.

The film served as a precursor to other science fiction movie classics, notably Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Parts of it will seem slow paced to modern viewers but it picks up near the end. Overall I found it okay.