$50,000 Guaranteed!

The 1958 film It! The Terror from Beyond Space is a generally well regarded piece of science fiction cinema.  It was the inspiration for Ridley Scott's original 1979 Alien film and has even been the basis for a new series of comic books in recent months.

Its movie poster, pictured above, is a classic example of 1950s B-movie publicity.  To quote:  "$50,000 GUARANTEED BY A WORLD-RENOWNED INSURANCE COMPANY TO THE FIRST PERSON WHO CAN PROVE "IT" IS NOT ON MARS NOW!"

I am imagining a young Carl Sagan attempting to collect the $50,000 while earning his doctorate of philosophy in astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago.

Wake Up Wichita! Before It's Too Late!

Cold War paranoia could also be fun and entertaining! Employees of the Orpheum Theater in Wichita, Kansas, pose in costume to promote the release of the 1953 movie Invasion U.S.A.

Invasion U.S.A. opened at the Orpheum on February 26, 1953. The theater borrowed one of Wichita's air raid sirens to display in the lobby. The accompanying display warned "Wake Up Wichita! Before It's Too Late!" The theater's management took the advice of exhibitor's promotional material which encouraged them to "Work out if possible, a 'siren' opening of your film--a test 'alert' for civilian defense workers." They also arranged for a Civil Defense Rescue Service truck to be parked in front of the theater's entrance. An exterior promotional display indicated that Invasion U.S.A. was shown at the Orpheum on the same bill with Walt Disney's Color Cartoon Revue. Just imagine, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck followed by the atomic annihilation of the United States.

As for the movie itself, according to the web site CONELRAD--

Shot in seven days in April of 1952 on a budget of $127,000.00, veteran director Alfred E. Green (THE JOLSON STORY) managed to combine a number of wildly disparate elements into this 74-minute tour de force of "atomic" filmmaking. The formula for Invasion U.S.A as accurately as can be determined is 30% stock footage, 20% staged newscasts to explain the stock footage, 30% intense and mostly nonsensical propaganda and 20% inappropriate romantic melodrama. Blended together the movie plays like a Joseph McCarthy fever dream.

Photos courtesy of Wichita Photo Archives.