Friday, April 20, 2007

Baby Pictures

Invaders from Mars (1953)
directed by William Cameron Menzies
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

I like that, after The Thief of Baghdad, I haven't heard of any of director Menzies' screen credits. Because the more I thought about Dave Kehr's hagiographic name-check in this week's New York Times, and the longer I stewed on "Invaders from Mars" (okay, twelve hours), the more it really felt like a movie from long ago (as opposed to just old sci-fi). The Night of the Hunter, another film about kids and nightmares, is as strange from a grown-up's eyes as it would be from a ten-year old's; "Invaders from Mars" isn't, but you can imagine.

I mean, after all, this is pretty wonderful: