Invasion, U.S.A.

I heard about this movie, Invasion USA, many years ago but it wasn't until this week (as a matter of fact today) that I finally got the movie to add to my video collection.

The primary reason that I had wanted to see it was that both Noel Neill and Phyllis Coates had parts in this movie. You ask, who are these actresses. Both of them played Lois Lane in the Adventures of Superman. Noell Neill played the original Lois Lane in the original Superman with Kirk Alyn in 1948.

I had heard that there was some sort of scuffle between them on this set and I wanted to see how professional actresses can overcome personal feelings between each other.

Well, the scenes that they were involved in didn't even have any connection with each other. Noell Neill was a ticket agent and had maybe 2 minutes on screen. Phyliss Coates had approximately the same amount of time but was in Colorado trying to fight the waters of the Colorado river after Boulder Dam was bombed by the "enemy".

If the United States, which is supposed to be a major super power, gets overrun in maybe a month, is really in essence, a paper tiger.

We saw some evidence of a weak and unprepared USA first at Pearl Harbor, the Vietnam war, and then September 11, 2001 in New York City.

I look up to the USA as the world protector and the champion of freedom, and I hope that the film Invasion USA will ALWAYS be classified as fiction.

Wow what a movie!! You thought Ed Wood or Bert I Gordon where stock footage happy. Alfred Green had probably no budget but a large supply of WW2 footage!! "Make a story around this war film, it'll go to the History Channel if we don't use it!!" (Al Green was probably psychic) It's not much of a film otherwise, acting is dull, characters are the type you don't really care about and the whole thing stinks of propaganda. Well it was the cold war. MST had fun with this and deservingly so!! Does this film exist in non-mst form?? Probably so but I do not recommend without Mike and the bots. This film also features the two Lois Lanes from the old Superman series. Hey this would be a great double feature with Jungle Goddess (featuring George Reeves) Enjoy!!

It's worth noting that this ultra-low-budget splicing-together of unmatched stock footage was mocked and panned even in its own day, so it should not be viewed seriously as an accurate document of Cold War paranoia. Even in the depths of the Red Scare, most Americans weren't stupid enough to be scared by crap like this. It was more like a super-cheapie public service announcement for the military-industrial complex. If you fast forward through most of the stock WW2 battle scenes, which are endless, and slow down for the "story" scenes, it's a mildly amusing exercise in what-if? science fiction -- doofy and utterly implausible, but good for some wry smiles. I mean, you gotta love that the hypnotist fortune teller is named Ohman. It's also kind of interesting that many, many more "serious," bigger-budget invasion and terrorist- plot films since this one have followed a pretty similar storyline, if more competently. Add the general atmosphere of paranoia post-9/11, and this thing is worth a look, with the FF button to the metal.

To begin with, I had expected to be more engaged by this one – which I also was under the wrong impression would be a talk-fest: instead, about sixty per cent of its trim 74-minute duration is compiled of wartime stock footage (representing the potential decimation of the U.S. by invading Communist forces) – scenes of the London blitz from the celebrated Humphrey Jennings documentary FIRES WERE STARTED (1943) are supposed to stand in for the burning of New York! I wonder how Americans look at the film nowadays vis-a'-vis the events of 9/11 – which is perhaps the only reason why it ever saw the light of day on DVD in the first place!

As it stands, INVASION USA is both hysterical and unintentionally hilarious – never more so than when a car is caught in the flooding of Hoover Dam (hit by a nuclear bomb!) and a cowboy hat is seen floating on a branch as the sole remnant of its Texan owner!; Also worth mentioning are the fact that when the U.S. Senate is besieged, it's seen to be peopled merely by doddering statesmen, while the intermittent 'appearances' by the American President addressing the nation are taken from a vague solitary angle! Equally queasy is the fact that handsome leads Gerard Mohr (a cynical TV reporter) and Peggie Castle are drawn together at such a precarious time, while the middle-aged bartender keeps mixing drinks as if his life depended on it – apparently oblivious to the ongoing calamities! Needless to say, the unnamed Soviets are depicted throughout as unemotional slogan-spouting caricatures.

The best thing about the film is the brief but typically riveting performance by Dan O'Herlihy (incidentally, years later he'd appear in a genuine Cold War classic i.e FAIL SAFE [1964]) – not least in view of the twist ending brought about by his particular line of work. In the DVD supplements, much is made of the fact that the film features the two actresses who played "Superman"'s Lois Lane on TV – Noel Neill and Phyllis Coates – but their contribution is, at best, negligible!; also on hand as a newscaster is character actor William Schallert, who's said to have made more Atomic-related titles than anyone else (the top 100 such efforts compiled by "Conelrad" are listed, with a brief synopsis for each one, on the Synapse DVD itself); in an interview included on the disc, Schallert speaks of his brush with Orson Welles' TOUCH OF EVIL (1958) where he was proposed for the role later played by Maltese actor Joseph Calleia – whom Schallert mistakenly thinks was an Italian! Oh, well, it's near enough I suppose…

As can be gathered, therefore, the extras are quite nice, being pretty comprehensive about the whole Cold War aura which pervaded the first two decades or so of the post-war era (though I've only very briefly sampled the two radio programs which play back-to-back as an Audio Commentary to the film). One of the most telling comments in the extras comes from O'Herlihy himself – when he went to Russia in the late 1960s to film WATERLOO (1970), he was met by such an inefficient people that he couldn't fathom how their threat was ever taken seriously!; Noel Neill, then, overhypes the film's impact – I mean saying it blows PEARL HARBOR (2001) out of the water is not much of a feat, is it? In the end, I have to admit that when the Communist ideology (or critique thereof) was presented as a sci-fi allegory, the results were generally that much more fun

This film is no masterpiece. But it is nowhere near as bad as often made out, perhaps by those who have never seen it.

The use of stock footage, and some cheap special effects, is not unusual for films of this vintage. For a low budget film, it actually made good use of the available resources.

I suspect most of the criticism is not based on the film itself, but its supposed political failings. However the politics of a film are not a reason to pan it. We recognise the Battleship Potemkin as a great film, despite it being communist propaganda. The same applies to Triumph of the Will as Nazi propaganda. Less successful but no less political films, such as Schindler's List, are rated on their merits, irrespective of their message.

Invasion U.S.A. adopts a narrative that is close to documentary. It does not include irrelevant romantic distractions, or complex sub-plots. It is rather more of a war film than an anti-communist work.

The enemy is not clearly identified. They look and sound rather more like Nazis than Reds. The identity of the enemy is not as important as the message that America needs to be ready to defend itself. I would have thought that the message that a country needs to be vigilant is as correct now as in 1952.

The course of the invasion, and its successful outcome, were refreshing after watching too many gung ho American films where the US heroes always prevail. This film shows the reality that the USA could have been invaded by the Soviet Union in 1952 - if they had been, the Soviets would almost certainly have won the war. Russia had a narrow window of opportunity, before the USA developed too many thermonuclear weapons, and invasion would be too costly. There were Soviet invasion plans prepared.

I wonder when we will see an American film about a successful Taliban or ISIS attack on the USA, with the message that the USA needs to be prepared.