Phantom from Space Review

What we've got here is an atomic age science fiction film noir entitled Phantom from Space from 1953, directed by W. Lee Wilder, and starring a cast of square-jawed unknowns whose obscurity lends realism to the quasi-documentary approach taken by the fillmmakers.

Our story begins with a fast-moving UFO entering US airspace, then crash landing off the California coast. Murder and mayhem ensue. Actually, most of the first act plays like your standard cops-and-robbers-type movie, and except for the radar gizmos on the roof of the investigator's car, you might think you're watching an episode of Highway Patrol. Actually, think of it as more like Dragnet in The Twilight Zone. It's one part police procedural, one part sci-fi, add a dash of cold war paranoia and one alienated space alien, and you've got a heady brew called Phantom from Space, a heartwarming tale of a sensitive young extraterrestrial trapped in a world that he doesn't understand.

It's pretty slow going early on, but bear with it, and you will be rewarded. The plot concerns an unidentified flying object which has fallen from the sky and come to rest among the degenerate jet set of Southern California. The authorities are on the case like white on rice. The intruder will be brought to justice. Unfortunately, the alien has come in peace, but has no way to communicate this fact to the authorities. Every human with whom he comes into contact invariably freaks out and tries to bash his head in.

It's a crude but effective little parable: the stranger from a strange land meets humankind and finds the usual lack of understanding and extreme prejudice.

To quote venerable swamp sage Pogo, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Phantom from Space was directed by W. Lee Wilder (Killers from Space, Manfish), the brother of Hollywood legend Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot). While his brother directed a series of classic films with the cream of Hollywood's A-list talent, W. Lee Wilder made a series of low-budget shockers, some of them quite good despite being more than a little cheesy by today's standands, with actors like Ted Cooper, Tom Daly, and Noreen Nash, the "stars" of this movie.

I'm giving this movie four stars because it was a favorite of mine when I was a kid watching it on WOR-TV's "Spaced Out Films," because the ending is truly memorable, and because its message is timeless.

Available on DVD from Alpha Video and numerous low-budget purveyors of public domain titles.