Richard Carlson night

TCM's prime time lineup for tonight is a bunch of science ficton movies starring Richard Carlson. I knew he was in It Came From Outer Space, which is on at 8:00 PM, but I didn't realize just how many other of those B-grade scifi movies he was in.

And, to be honest, it's been so long since I've seen It Came From Outer Space that the synopsis isn't quite what I remember it being. Basically, Carlson plays a man living out in the Arizona desert who sees a meteorite, investigates, and finds that it's actually an alien spacecraft that's crash-landed! Needless to say, he can't get anybody to believe him, until the aliens start kidnapping townsfolk, which only serves to frighten the townsfolk, even if the aliens come in peace. To be fair, it should be obvious that the aliens are coming in peace. If they weren't, they're still advanced enough technologically that thye'd be able to find a way to annihilate human life if they wanted to take over the planet, or just destroy the planet if that's what was necessary. But then, most of these scifi movies aren't worth watching for their scientific accuracy.

That would be much along the lines of the Saturday afternoon lineup, which has a process-photography giant tarantula, and ugly giant mollusks that had glowing eyes once they were out of their shells. Still, there's something about these 1950s scifi films that is just so charming; even when they're not good, they tend to wind up in the "so bad it's good" category.