NOT OF THIS EARTH
(1957; d. Roger Corman, w. Charles B. Griffith + Mark Hanna)

"Time narrows." Immediately after offing woman, alien (outcast) Mr Johnson turns killer/petrifying eyes on audience + film begins: Corman, similar mind-controlling outlaw (J even beats parking tickets in beginning: not so much scofflaw, but blind/ignorant, operating on own system), film to follow confounding our/his identities, turning blank "look" back on audience à la TV screen in pre-credits It Conquered the World – confrontational, as tho daring us to not "see."

Has no pupils/irises: typical Corman hypersensitivo w/ superior mental pwrs + different way of seeing (if he does say so himself) à la X-Ray Man who sees structure of things (at heart of which is own obliviation); gaze hypnotic, he Medusa similarly turning others to stone (removing glasses revealing self in order to conceal, as exhibitionist similarly uses shock to mask pain of being "exposed" + vulnerable; cf monster decoy in Corman fave Creature f/t Haunted Sea + psychological resonances of same).

Charmed by Johnson’s plainclothed naïveté (banality of evil + the misfit’s ineffectual assimilation), nurse Bev Garland takes position administering life-sustaining transfusions, J’s own blood evaporating (diminishing/self-destructive Corman visionary), as is native planet Davanna (à la Usher house, Richtofen + Brown’s Germany, Crabsters’ island + Frankenstein Unbound’s future [+ time itself]): woman restoring standard ’50s Shrinking/obsolete Man (J middleaged already), whom Corman savvy enuf to know not worth effort.

Earth exactly as Davanna used to be: Eden just after nuke Fall which’s now destroying home planet, J’s mission (as 2nd-phase Oedipus), to investigate "past" in order to cure pestilential "present" (where Oedi discovers source to be self: nuke pwr Sphinx met at crossroads to fate); Johnson, hwvr, already eyeless, never achieves insight + dies in unknown land à la Man Who Fell to Earth.

Lures victims to cellar for draining, surprised when salesman Dick Miller invites self (à la Little Shop of Horrors’ Leonora Clyde [scr also by CBG], that film’s Jonathan Haze Mr Johnson’s majordomo, again slave to annihilating master), voracious body-burning furnace variously Audrey Jr/Crabsters/Usher crypt + Nazi ovens, guilty Original Sin desire (as of Oedi for mom), Bomb, devouring Terrible Mother (à la closet teleporter, both "vessels" from one plane/dimension to another) + eclectic film itself, folding in elements of This Island Earth, Day Earth Stood Still, Invasion o/t Body Snatchers + It Conquered.

Closet Control Guy obsessed w/ time (running out for nuke Davanna as for post-nuke ’50s [cf similar Corman Teenage Caveman, Crabsters + Day World Ended as well as others’ Space Children, Invaders from Mars, High Noon, Cosmic Man + 5000 Fingers of Dr T]) failing consciousness (disembodied head dreamer, counterpointed by mounted game head on wall next) which finally wanes + dies, as tho trying to outrun alarm clock.

Replaced by pre-verbal femalien (contemporary feminine/anima gaining ascendance over masculine/animus), whom Johnson lets off hook for criminal tele-use (as cop had done him earlier: film starting over w/ her arrival) but inadvertently transfuses w/ rabid blood (he inept nurse; cf also FU Buchanan’s failed Justine rescue + Bev’s ICW similar); Bev nevertheless prevails, resolving Corman fem-ambivalence, Davannan chick also device for characters to comprehend situations (fem Christ; flimsy plot thread, otherwise), as dr who administers to Johnson hypnotized into never discussing alien himself (dream-censor avoiding too-touchy material [daddy/God is a killer sucking our blood] + biblical decree against graven imgs or uttering True Name of God), Bev filmmakers’ own instrument for same (each "miror" by which to defeat Medusa), acting out conflict btwn obsolete, parasitic man + spunky, nurturing wmnhood.

Closing HERE LIES A MAN WHO WAS N.O.T.E. epitaph Wellesian "What can you say about a man?" also resolving lone, outcast i.d. in graveside couple’s romantic union; appearance behind them of new Davannan suggestion problem Of Earth now, Bev’s thwarted teleportation into future failed transcendence of contemporary sexual politics.

Likely inspiration also for Chris Marker’s La Jetée, w/ similarly sunglassed citizens of dying future sending rep back to present for key to replenishment.