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Sci Fi Night

         It's Sci Fi night on TCM. I just watched a 1953 production of Ray Bradbury's They Came From Outer Space. It's black and white. The only actor name I recognized was Barbara Rush, but I don't really know anything about her.

         It kind of surprised me. It wasn't as corny as I expected. It wasn't scary. The characters' reaction to scary things brought more fright than the aliens. We're accustomed to grander special effects, I guess. These aliens were more ethereal, or misty. They were not touchable like today's movie creatures. The story was a good one--aliens who came in peace and by accident.

         Apparently, it had an influence on Steven Spielberg, who made Close Encounters of the Third Kind and ET. It's not my usual cup of tea to watch Sci Fi, but I kept thinking my late brother would have watched it. So that made it better for me. And it is interesting to find how these earlier films helped shape today's artists.