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Sci-fi about a creature from Venus coming to Earth. A scientist (Lee van Cleef) gets in touch with it through some machine. He believes the creature wants to bring peace and helps guide it to Earth. Naturally the creature wants to possess and conquer...

Infamous Roger Corman movie which has one of the silliest aliens ever filmed. It's also pretty stupid, dull in spots and laughable. But the acting is actually good (Peter Graves and Beverly Garland especially) and I DO find the alien at the end just...unbelievable. Also it does have two instances of over the top violence (for its time)--a man is set on fire and the thing gets its eye poked out (this is cut from some non-cable prints).

Not good but 100 times better than its remake "Zontar the Thing from Venus". And Garland and Graves ARE good. I give it a 5.

A well meaning scientist guides an alien monster to Earth from Venus, so that he can rid mankind of feelings and emotions -- but only death and sorrow results.

Yes, this is a terrible movie by any real standards. Once you see the monster (or cucumber, or whatever it is) that allegedly "conquers the world", you will instantly know this is not a film to be taken seriously.

But, of course, that is sort of the point. Roger Corman built his reputation on cheesy science fiction fun. He knew it was not terrifying, but that was not the goal -- grab some popcorn and a Dr Pepper, and just have fun!

I have always found Lee Van Cleef to seem to be a very limited actor. Of course, that is because of the roles he found himself having to play. There was not much he had to do in the spaghetti westerns except stand around and look blankly sinister. Then some years ago I found a copy of this film. I remember seeing it in the 1950s but had forgotten the cast. I remember thinking the film silly back then. Now as I have ripened into maturity ("A full grown nut" as Ralph Kramden said to Ed Norton)- or maybe I have just gotten ripe- I find I really enjoy this film. A good monster film is never about the monster. The film is about the people dealing with each other and the monster in that order. It Conquered The World fits that rule. The special effects simply do not exist. The alien is totally absurd in its appearance. However, I can ignore all that because of the acting and the plot involving the characters. I found Lee Van Cleef especially effective in this role and I enjoy watching him bring his character to life. He is struggling with his decision to assist an alien from Venus come to Earth to save us all from our jejune frivolities which inhibit human progress. He wants things to be better for people and thinks he has found a way through this alien being. He has his doubts and Lee is well able to act this conflict of doubt to our great satisfaction. Peter Graves is an actor you can count on to give a good performance even when he is not inspired. Dittos for the rest of the cast. In short, if you can ignore the cheap sets, absurd special effects, uninspired means of corner cutting due to lack of budget, and just enjoy the acting- a weakness for the lesser of the 1950s genre helps, too- I would recommend this film with the stated qualifications.

Give me a break! The commentary for this movie cracks me up...why don't you nay-sayers give a second to remember WHEN it was made? It's one of the best examples of 50's drive-in treasure in collective memory. This silly yet earnest little movie has wormed it's way into the consciousness of anyone who's ever seen it. Paul Blaisdell's Venusian Carrot remains one of the most memorable aliens to ever grace the screen! Add to this total piece of weirdness one of Beverly Garland's best performances, most memorable in her first sighting of the Carrot: "So that's what you look like.....You're ugly!!!". Where was her Oscar for delivering this line with total conviction (and a straight face?) Yes, there was life before bloated CGI computer effects, and this superior potboiler proves yet again that once upon a time, imagination and ingenuity could work wonders. One of the all time-great sci-fi movies!

"IT conquered the world," said Beverly Garland when she first time saw the prop of the monster on the set and then kicked it over. Yep, that's how ridiculous the monster looked, and the mysterious "It" doesn't look any good on screen either.

'It Conquered the World' is typical Corman's cheese fest at its finest, and great example how great of an actors Beverly Garland, Lee Van Cleef and Peter Graves actually were - they had to be in the top of their game to play through that pile of cheese with such a serious faces without looking ridiculous. The film has nice interesting premise - a disillusioned and naive scientist Tom Anderson (Van Cleef) helps an alien from Venus arrive to Earth and gain control. Chaos brakes loose when brains of some authoritative figures are taken over by hostile alien and rest of the people are taken 'under protective custody'. Scientist's wife (Beverly Garland) and his best friend (Peter Graves) are trying to talk sense into the mad scientist, while 'It' slowly gains more control over humans, until the fiend (who looks more like ice cream cone) is taken out heroic actions in real Corman's style. The film nicely plays with some interesting ideas, but never getting them properly developed or getting any full use out of them. Well - it is a Roger Corman movie, what else one can expect from his style of rushed production. The film is still highly entertaining, and Beverly Garland's powerful performance (did I really just said something like that about Corman's movie) has a lot to do with that. Peter Graves' Dr. Nelson's final overblown monologue about human nature over the montage of dead bodies dramatically over serious but somewhat eerie ending to this campy monster film.

Another fun exploitation flick, but with little bit substance (not well developed script, but rather on idea bases) under the covers of (extremely) cheap special effects and cheesy dialogues. In that department, 'It Conquered the World' surpasses most of modern big budgeted, glossy science-fiction extravaganzas with polished special effects.

This is the movie Zappa discusses during the preamble to the song Cheepnis on the Roxy & Elsewhere album.

Only Roger Corman could truly explore the horrific implications of an evil vegetable! The acting isn't bad in this, considering the actors were being forced to take the ridiculous monster seriously. Graves and Van Cleef are both adequate and everybody loves Beverly Garland! Unfortunately, all the themes of the movie are stated in dialogue, especially the long moralizing speech at the end. My only problem with this is that it assumes the audience isn't intelligent enough to figure this out themselves. But oh well, there are a lot of movies that are much worse.

If you cut out the bats and the shots actually showing the monster it becomes quite an eerie B-quickie. Lee Van Cleef is stiff but does a good job and the music can be chilling at times. The framing is spooky and unatural in a way that I think helps further the mood. The creature makes peoples emotions disappear and it fits the acting where they kind of just read the lines. It's a short and sweet sci-fi thriller that packs a few unintentional laughs. One of Cormans earliest. Perfect if you want to run a marathon some day when you're sick or it's raining outside.

This is an entertaining, well acted, well edited film of its genre. Classic anti-communist fear, rubber monster, Roger Corman trash fun.

Heavily cut on its initial release. BEWARE, the only available DVD release from Siren Entertainment (coupled with Creature from the Haunted Sea) retains these cuts. 29 cuts in total including ALL IMAGES of the monster! Ludicrously, while all images of our rubber friend are removed, most of the human to human violence, some of which is quite strong, remains.

I will never understand censorship ! Where Siren entertainment got this copy from I do not know. The film deserves a restored, uncut release.

It Conquered the World (1956) concerns an embittered human scientist who guides an alien creature called Zontar from Venus to the Earth, so that it can bring peace to our troubled world by ridding humankind of its feelings and emotions. The scientist, however, is totally oblivious to the terrible consequences of his actions.

There's no escaping the fact that It Conquered The World is a low budget movie with special effects to match that will cause audiences to chuckle. This is more than made up for by the film's energy and its surprisingly above- average cast.

Despite its shortcomings, the film works on many levels including interesting characters and the moral choices they make, a complex and thoughtful plot as well as effectively playing on 1950s Cold War fears.

I caught this movie on late night TV a few months back and I must say, I was laughing from beginning to end. From the endlessly entertaining dialog, to the downright ludicrous monster, this movie is an absolute winner, in a turkey kind of way.

Conjured up during the 50's heyday of sci-fi flicks and B-movies, I recommend this movie to anyone that is fan of this era in cinema. Makes me come to the conclusion that Roger Corman is God. I wonder if this set was used on other films, since Corman knew best how to get by on a shoestring budget. For the love of Pete, this is the same guy that made up to 9 films a year, eat your heart out Spielberg!! So basically, to those of you with a truly warped sense of humor, this movie is right up your alley.

A lot of people slam Roger Corman and try and act like every movie he made was worthless schlock, but while he definitely did make a few stinkers in his long career, the truth is that he was involved with more good than bad movies, either as a director or a producer. In fact, some of the movies he directed were better than just "good" e.g. 'The Trip' and 'Bloody Mama'. His early reputation mainly rests on his quickie monster movies, and 'It Conquered The World' is one of the most entertaining. So okay, it a low budget movie (and I mean LOW), it's very naive and the special effects are poor. The Venusian monster and the flying bat things will probably inspire fits of giggles in most people, but despite all that the movie has lots of energy and it hooks you straight in. It's also helped enormously by having an above average cast. The two leads are Peter Graves and Lee Van Cleef. Graves later became immortal on TV as Mr. Phelps in 'Mission: Impossible', and Van Cleef became a Western icon via his work in movies such as 'The Good, The Bad And The Ugly' and 'Death Rides A Horse'. Van Cleef gives an intense performance as a scientist obsessed with communication with aliens. Graves is his more level headed colleague. When Van Cleef intercepts messages from an extraterrestrial that only he can hear, his wife (Beverly Garland) and Graves think he is cracking up. He co-operates with the alien, helping it to try and take over the world. Garland is best known to most people for her later work on TV (e.g.'My Three Sons'), but boy is she sexy here! Hubba! Hubba! Being a Corman movie we shouldn't be surprised to see Dick Miller in the supporting cast. He plays a soldier, as does Jonathan Haze (Seymour in 'Little Shop Of Horrors) 'It Conquered The World' isn't up to the standards of such 1950s SF classics as 'The Incredible Shrinking Man' or 'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers', but it's lots of fun, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys b-grade movies from this period.

Produced and directed by Roger Corman. Very low budget. A monster that to look at is laughable, not fearsome. A story line very much like so many to follow. An entity from outer space comes to our world and needs to enter human bodies in order to conquer it. A once respected scientist(Lee Van Cleef)has the ability to communicate with the invader and wants to be part of the super intellectual take over. His best friend (Peter Graves)is a rocket scientist that unknowingly provided the invader from Venus a way to arrive on earth.

The movie of course poses a frightening event in an innocent time. Mr. Graves plays his role very calm with little emotion to speak of. The rest of the cast seems way over the top. The cast includes Beverly Garland, Russ Bender, Sally Fraser and Dick Miller.

If the appearance of the monster was left to our imagination, it might have been more thrilling. But we get so disappointed without a creature of some sort to fuel our fears. It came and it conquered...well, conquered for almost an hour.

I think some Academy Awards should have been given out for this one, to Peter Graves, Lee Van Cleef, Beverly Garland, Sally Fraser and the rest for managing to keep straight faces through out the 71 minute running time of this Roger Corman camp classic.

There are nine of these vegetable Daleks from Venus left on that planet and they've been keeping up communications with earth scientist Lee Van Cleef. Van Cleef's a scientist who the world has seemingly passed by and he's been convinced that the arrival of these creatures who are possessing superior intellects to rule the Earth will usher in a golden age.

They move like the Daleks on Doctor Who with the same general shape accept they got banana like feet and crab like claws. The one that comes to earth on a stolen satellite has to live in a cave above a hot spring to simulate the Venusian climate. And he's earmarked eight control devices for some selected key people, one of them being Van Cleef's scientific colleague, Peter Graves.

It was acting of the highest caliber for this group of players to feign fear at this ridiculous looking monster. The monsters on the Power Rangers look more frightening. And Van Cleef and Garland's confrontations with the creature in the end will have you rolling on the floor.

One of Roger Corman's funnest films. It's a 1950s budget science fiction & horror film that I'm sure many teenagers and 20-somethings enjoyed at the old drive-in pictures shows during it's release.

These are cucumber-looking creatures are from planet Venus - and there aren't many of them left. They are somewhat logical but not completely - they have no feelings are emotions. They are using humans to kill one another - turning them into mindless slaves. This happened because Dr. Tom Anderson (van Cleef) was in contact with them and helped to guide them to our planet Earth. It is up to Dr. Paul Nelson (Graves) to help put an end to the destruction and deaths.

If you don't take this film seriously and just watch it for the fun of it then you might enjoy this Roger Corman feature.

6/10

In spite of the supposedly super-intelligent and ultra-menacing alien monster looking like a laughable and oversized vegetable with an angry face drawn on it, there are still several good reasons to watch this early low-budgeted Sci-Fi gem directed and produced by Roger Corman. For starters, there's the excellent ensemble cast! There are good roles and solid performances for Peter Graves, Beverly Garland, Corman's pal Dick Miller and – most of all – an exceptionally rare civilized role for Lee Van Cleef! Generally he only starred in raw westerns and exclusively depicted nasty villains, but here he's a respectable and clean shaven scientist. He even has a wife who genuinely loves him and remains faithful no matter what happens! Of course, he still remains Lee Van Cleef, so his character never smiles and nevertheless endangers the life of hundreds of other people. Another reason why this little gem plays in a different league than the vast majority of B-movies of the fifties is because of the clever and dead-serious script. As said, the monster may look silly, but the story behind it is tense, thought-provoking and compelling. Scientist Tom Anderson (Van Cleef) has been mocked for years regarding his theories about intellectual extraterrestrial lifeforms and how they could overtake our planet and save humanity from itself. From within his private home, Anderson has been corresponding with an alien from Venus and now helped it to hijack a NASA satellite and travel to earth. He believes that humanity should get enslaved by this super-intelligent creature and benefit from its wisdom and telekinetic powers, but his best friend Paul Nelson and own wife Claire desperately attempt to convince Tom that people should remain in control of their own emotions. This rather sober subject matter, in combination with a handful of deeply philosophical speeches and a few authentically tragic moments, leads "It Conquered the World" to be a much better Sci-Fi effort that it superficially seems. In the end, people are likely to just remember the goofy Mr. Potato Head alien and the silly bat-creatures, and that's almost a shame. Of course I understand that Roger Corman absolutely wanted to have a monster physically present in his film, in order to lure more people to the cinema, but in case the monster would have remained off-screen and hidden in its cave, the film might have been regarded as highly as contemporary classics like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" or "The Thing from Another World".

OK, what were the filmmakers smoking when they made this?

The only positive about this film is Beverly Garland. Other than that, I still shudder at the confusion I felt as the film prodded along (quite slowly). Apparently, some guy is in chaoots with an alien from Venus and these cheesy bats help convert humans into unwilling slaves. Really cheap-o budget here, atypical for B movies and even has a young Peter Graves who's stirring speech in the end will confuse any Nobel scientist. You also have incompetent army guys, conspiracy against humanity, unjustified spousal death, unwarranted use of makeshift flamethrower, and lots of screaming and fleeing in terror. The scene with the cop shooting some innocent storekeeper was quite amusing.

"He learned too late that man was a feeling creature and because of it the greatest in the universe..." ...next time on Biography!

One of the most entertaining sci-fi/horror films of the 50s. Very much camp with 3 all-time great B-actors (Garland, Graves, Van Cleef, one of the best B-casts ever). I love every minute of it. Includes John Haze and Dick Miller as army grunts and an out of this world monster by the now-legendary Paul Blaisdell. The best scene is where Beverly Garland confronts the monster from Venus: "You think you can make a slave of this world? Well, I'll see you in hell first!"

Fans of the Sergio Leone "Fistfull of Dollars" flicks should enjoy seeing Lee Van Cleef as a scientist who's betrayed the planet earth by helping the monster come to this planet and take over the show. Apparently, however, the "World" in this case consists of the environs of Grifftih Park and a few houses up on Coldwater Canyon. The monster is exceptionally poor -- you can see Blaisdell shoving the bat creatures out of the bottom of the suit.

This is a must-see for anyone with a sense of humor. It is not a bad movie -- it is a witty, fun, romping good time.

this is a decent s-f movie for corman but the interesting thing to me was hearing my father talking about seeing the same movie with two different casts at various times on TV! I've heard that corman remade or authorized remakes of some of his early films for TV. Is this true? Does anyone know anything about the remake or who was in it? I know that there are two versions of The Day The World Ended, but no one seems to know about the remake of it, either. It would be fascinating to see and compare the two, especially to see if anyone in the remakes went on to have any sort of career in TV or the movies worth mentioning. And I AM talking about the remakes. I know all about Graves, Garland, Mike Conners in The Day The World Ended, etc. But the remakes (possibly for TV) interest me more. Cindy Dare. cwd2017@yahoo.com