Nominated for the 2023 Rondo Award

Invasion ’51: The Birth of Alien Cinema

by Sean Kotz

6x9, 240 pages

 ISBN 9781629339931


Between March and September of 1951, three very different films launched a new Hollywood genre, the alien invasion feature, defining our cultural expectations for extraterrestrial contact in the process. Where The Thing from Another World gives us the first movie monster capable of total human annihilation, The Day the Earth Stood Still provides a messianic messenger who unmasks our own destructive potential. And then there is The Man from Planet X, whose ambiguous alien may have gotten some clandestine design help from the C.I.A.

Invasion ‘51 charts the historical and cinematic context for these films, and analyzes each from several angles including their symbolism, messaging, legacies and cultural impacts. Through intensive research, the book resolves mysteries and corrects misconceptions as well. Why did Hollywood switch from mad scientists to scientist heros in the ‘50s? Were Howard Hawks’ jokes simple punchlines or was there something else going on? Did Frank Lloyd Wright have a hand in designing Klaatu’s spaceship? Why does the description of the Planet X spacecraft differ from its appearance on screen?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Like many readers of this book, Sean Kotz’s love of classic horror and science fiction began as a child and never dissipated. He is a writer, researcher, documentary filmmaker and educator from Virginia. He has taught film, literature and writing at Virginia Tech and Radford University, where he currently teaches genre film courses.

"Aliens threatened the earth three times in 1951, and humans loved it. With a backdrop of Cold War paranoia and publicized sightings of UFOs, this book by documentary filmmaker Kotz (director of the 2011 doc Hi There Horror Movie Fans about Virginia's legendary horror movie broadcaster Bill "The Bowman Body" Bowman) shows not only how American audiences were primed for a new type of monster movie but also how a beleaguered film industry was ready to deliver. Kotz takes a deep dive into three alien-invasion flicks that premiered in 1951: The Thing from Another World, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and The Man from Planet X. Each film gets its due, with an exploration of its production, reception, and legacy. The author combines extensive research with scholarly insight (he teaches film at Radford Univ.), resulting in a thoughtful yet engaging read. Movie buffs will enjoy Kotz's discussions of Planet X's marketing and of the debate over who actually directed The Thing, and his analysis of journalism's role in the films and the Department of Defense's response to alien-invasion flicks broadens the book's scope.

VERDICT Useful for film scholars or sociologists, yet still accessible for general sci-fi fans, Kotz's book is a fascinating look at the debut of an extraterrestrial movie menace that's still popular today."
- Library Journal