It Conquered the World is an independently made 1956 American black-and-white science fiction film, produced and directed by Roger Corman, starring Peter Graves, Lee Van Cleef, Beverly Garland, and Sally Fraser. It Conquered the World was released theatrically by American International Pictures as a double feature with The She-Creature.
It Conquered the World concerns an alien creature from the planet Venus that secretly wants to take control of the Earth. The creature makes radio contact with a disillusioned human scientist, who agrees to help because the scientist believes that such an alien intervention will bring peace and save a doomed humanity from itself.
Plot
Dr. Tom Anderson, an embittered scientist, has made contact with a Venusian creature, while using his radio transmitter. The alien's secret motivation is to take complete control of the Earth by enslaving humanity using mind control devices; the alien claims that it merely desires to bring peace to the world by eliminating all emotions. Anderson agrees to help the creature and even intends to allow it to assimilate his wife, Claire and friend Dr. Paul Nelson.
The Venusian then disrupts all electric power on Earth, including motor vehicles, leaving Dr. Nelson to resort to riding a bicycle.
After avoiding a flying bat-like creature which carries the mind control device, Dr. Nelson returns home to find his wife, Joan newly assimilated. She then attempts to force his own assimilation using another bat-creature in her possession, and he is forced to kill her in self-defense. By then, the only people who are still free from the Venusian's influence are Nelson, Anderson, Anderson's wife and a group of army soldiers on station in the nearby woods.
Nelson finally persuades the paranoid Anderson that he has made a horrible mistake in blindly trusting the Venusian's motives, allying himself with a creature bent on world domination. When they discover that Tom's wife Claire has taken a rifle to the alien's cave in order to kill it, they hurriedly follow her, but the creature kills her before they can rescue her. Finally, seeing the loss of everything he holds dear, Dr. Anderson viciously attacks the Venusian by holding a blowtorch to the creature's face; Anderson dies at the alien's hand as it expires. Arriving on the scene too late to save his friend, Nelson sadly reflects on how Anderson's misguided ideals ultimately led to death and devastation, and muses that a solution to humanity's problems must ultimately be achieved by humanity itself.
Cast
Peter Graves as Dr. Paul Nelson
Lee Van Cleef as Dr. Tom Anderson
Beverly Garland as Claire Anderson
Sally Fraser as Joan Nelson
Russ Bender as General James Pattick
Taggart Casey as Sheriff N.J. Shallert
Karen Kadler as Dr. Ellen Peters
Dick Miller as Sgt. Neil
Jonathan Haze as Corporal Manuel Ortiz
Paul Harbor as Dr. Floyd Mason
Charles B. Griffith as Dr. Pete Shelton
Thomas E. Jackson as George Haskell
Marshall Bradford as Secretary Platt
David McMahon as General Carpenter
Paul Blaisdell as The Monster (uncredited)
Production
Development
The film was inspired by the box office success of Day the World Ended, also directed by Corman. It was written by Lou Rusoff (Sam Arkoff's brother-in-law), but before being completed, Rusoff's brother died and he had to leave for Canada. Corman then called in Charles Griffith to do a final rewrite, two days before filming began. Griffith does have a small part as a scientist.
Griffith said Rusoff's script "was incomprehensible which was strange because he was quite meticulous. Lou's brother was dying at the time which most likely had something to do with it." Griffith said he "wrote streams of dialogue. The picture was terrible."
Peter Graves' casting was announced in March 1956. Beverly Garland's casting was announced shortly afterwards.
Shooting
Filming began 3 April 1956.
The design of the creature was Paul Blaisdell's idea, and he thought that coming from a big planet, It would have evolved to deal with heavy gravity and would therefore be low to the ground. Corman later admitted this was a mistake, saying the creature would have been more frightening had It been larger or taller. When Beverly Garland first saw the creature, she commented "That conquered the world?" and claimed she kicked It over (unlikely, since Blaisdell said in an interview that it took three men to turn the prop onto its side for the film's death scene finale).