THE SPACE CHILDREN (1958)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

Though producer William Alland and director Jack Arnold worked on a couple of mundane dramas following this film, THE SPACE CHILDREN was their last metaphenomenal film together. Arnold also directed MONSTER ON THE CAMPUS in 1958, and two versions of THE MOUSE THAT ROARED, as well various TV episodes with fantastic content, but his best work was clearly behind him. Writer Bernard C. Schoenfeld was not a specialist in the meta-genres, and his only other work in that area was a TWILIGHT ZONE episode and the fantasy THE MAGIC SWORD.

CHILDREN begins with promise. Once again, Arnold and his collaborators take us out into the American wilderness, where the U.S. Army is working on The Thunderer, an orbiting missile defense scheduled for an imminent launch. Civilian scientist Dave Brewster has been ordered to work on the project, so he uproots his family and moves them out to the army base. The two young boys, Bud and Ken, are thrilled at what seems a new adventure, but wife Anne resents the move. Later, she will prove to be the only voice who opposes (albeit briefly) the nuclear brinksmanship of the great powers.

Bud and Ken become friends with five other kids of other civilian consultants, and the children go wandering on the uninhabited beach. There they behold a brilliant ray descend from space into a cavern, and they investigate. They encounter a mute alien being-- called "The Space Brain" in some concordances, because it looks like a small plastic brain (though it grows a bit during the narrative)-- which telepathically charges the children with a mission: to stop the launch of The Thunderer.

Since the script doesn't say anything about other nations mounting similar defenses, the possibility is left open for a while that the Brain may be softening Earth up for conquest. But the children evince a calm faith in the Brain's directions, giving them the resonance of noble messengers of a higher cause. Sure enough, though at the conclusion the Thunderer is destroyed before it can assume orbital status, the children inform the adults that other children all over the globe have similarly neutralized other nuclear doomsday devices. Then the Brain goes back to space, and the children return to normal. All that's missing is a quote from Isaiah.

I've rushed through the plot somewhat because most of the events are talky and undercharacterized. Possibly Schoenfeld's biggest failing is that even though he introduces the Brewsters as the POV characters, he drops Dave into a coma halfway through the film, and the new POV character, who shoulders most of the communication with the Brain's pawns, becomes base scientist Doctor Wahrman (a suitably ironic name, since he's complicit in promoting an unwinnable war, though the script belatedly tries to redeem Wahrman as a man of reason).

CHILDREN is a decent formula film of its kind, with a decent message. But most of the players didn't accrue much fame, so there's not a lot of star-watching potential here. Raymond "Mr. Drysdale" Bailey gets the plum role of Wahrman, but three others with major TV-roles-- the performers responsible respectively for Uncle Fester, The Professor, and Mark McCain-- are sidled with nothing roles.