n the summer of 1952, 32-year-old science fiction writer Ray Bradbury spent six weeks under contract at Universal Studios writing "a story for film." During his month-and-a-half stint with the studio, he was provided with a $300 weekly paycheck and worked in a two-office unit at Bungalow 10, which he shared with western screenwriter Sam Rolfe.
During that time, he wrote four treatments for The Atomic Monster (a 39-pager, a 37-pager, a 49-pager and the last one, a 119-pager renamed It Came From Outer Space.) Screenwriter Harry Essex and director Jack Arnold (who later directed such '50 sci-fi gems as Creature From the Black Lagoon, Tarantula, Revenge of the Creature and The Incredible Shrinking Man) used the 119-page treatment as the basis for what would become the 1953 3-D motion picture.
Earlier, Bradbury had written a short story called "A Matter of Taste" for The Magazine of Fantasy And Science Fiction, but the magazine rejected it. The story would provide the inspiration for the movie. The tale about Earth astronauts not being able to deal with intelligent giant spiders was a metaphor for mankind's fear of the Other, or xenophobia.
That instinctual fear of the Other is the theme of It Came From Outer Space, a movie about astronomer John Putnam and schoolteacher Ellen Fields, who track down a meteor that crashes near their desert town in Arizona. They discover that, in fact, it's not a meteor but a spaceship. When the couple investigate the ship, it gets buried under an avalanche of rocks. No one believes Putnam's incredible story, and soon alien replicas take on the form of local humans so they can repair their damaged spaceship.
It had a wonderful life
It Came From Outer Space has everything good going for it. Donn Albright, who also did a fantastic job editing Gauntlet's Dark Carnival in 2001, does an outstanding job again. Everything imaginable relating to both the movie and story are included in the book.
Highlights include all four treatments, a breathtaking cover painting by Bradbury himself, an exclusive interview with Bradbury by Albright, the essays "Our Harvest Is Fear" by William F. Touponc and "Bradbury's Web of Fear" by Jonathan Eller, the short story "A Matter of Taste" and a "Reminiscence" by Russell Johnson, who played the lineman George in the film (and years later would star in Gilligan's Island as the Professor). In "After Thoughts," Bradbury tells about the first time he met Steven Spielberg, who told him that It Came From Outer Space was the inspiration behind Spielberg's hit Close Encounters of the Third Kind). There are also a plethora of photos, posters, ads and reviews of the movie.
Reading about the origins of It Came From Outer Space will increase appreciation for the film and the early genius of Bradbury. Bradbury, Albright and Gauntlet Press are currently working on plans to publish a special edition of The Halloween Tree for 2005. Considering Gauntlet's track record with the Bradbury books, this should be a promising project as well.
