Ted Newsom wrote:
I didn't react that way. I saw it in a theater-- the 30th Avenue Theater, a glorious fleapit in Portland, near where I loved-- when I was about 9, so the film would have been less than ten years old. Yeah, there wasn't any big monster fight, but, boy, when I'd see little sparkly-stuff trails on the ground or something, I'd get worried after that.


Definitely! I saw it at a matinee in 1959 at age 7 and it really worked for me. It did seem a lot more mature than the usual monster fest and the slow build-up of suspense, the theremin-ladened score (which I find too much these days) gave it an unnerving quality. I was watching the Rin-Tin-Tin tv show religiously at the time and the idea of lovable Sergeant O'Hara  (Joe Sawyer) as a martian played into the aura of menace. To say I was impressed was an understatement.