Illegal aliens from outer space!
 also released as Mexico, What's Up with That? Director = Alan Smithee Producer = Enrique Javier Juarez Rodriguez Studio = Heritage Film Co. Distributor = Hecho en América, Inc. Release Date = 1959 |
Illegal Aliens from Outer Space! (1959) is a fact-based horror film that played in drive-in movie theaters across America. It is widely lauded for opening the eyes of an entire generation of movie patrons to the blood-curdling terror of a heterogeneous nation.
Filmed in Super Black 'n' White-O-Vision, with monophonic sound recorded in Mono-O-Phon-O-Sound, Illegal Aliens from Outer Space! proved to be a blockbuster that far exceeded the director's humble expectations. The movie's potent real-life lessons held patrons enrapt, while its documentary film-style distracted horny teens, protecting them from the joys of second base for the duration of the action-packed second and third acts of the film.
Cast
While the roles of the protagonists in the film, the four members of a typical nuclear family, were filled by the cast of television's Leave it to Beaver (Jerry Mathers, Hugh Beaumont, Barbara Billingsley and Tony Dow), the aliens were all played by prominent Latino-Americans. These aliens, or Mexicaliens, were played by such luminaries as Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef (best known for their roles as Tuco and "Angel Eyes", respectively, in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) and Horst Buchholz (Chico from The Magnificent Seven).[1] Virtually unrecognizable on screen, they wore state-of-the-art makeup[2] to help them appear suitably swarthy as evil aliens from the planet Mexicon 7 who come to destroy the peaceful suburbs of the USA with their spicy foods, passionate dances and music with lively, erotic rhythms.
Plot
Opening scene
The film opens on an unnamed, quiet, innocent, suburbanized town. Mary Wilson, a quiet, innocent, suburbanized housewife is cooking a simple, healthy breakfast of toast, scrambled eggs, cereal, bacon, bran muffins, tea, grapefruit, biscuits, porridge, coffee, sausages, fresh-squeezed orange juice, hash browns, waffles, fresh-squeezed milk, oatmeal, omelets and pancakes for her pale, freckled kids, Steven and William Jr., and her tanned, pipe smoking husband, William Sr.
She is shown wistfully gazing out of the kitchen window, taking drags off her Virginia Slim[3] while pondering just how different her life would be if she hadn't married her high school sweetheart after getting knocked up, settling down, and giving up on her dream of a respectable female career.[4]
When her husband inquires about the location of the salt shaker she turns away from the window, narrowly missing the unearthly sight of a giant sombrero-shaped UFO landing some distance away.
Cue insidious music ... Dun-dun dun!
The next day ...
At school Steven is working hard at his desk to learn enough to secure a lifelong job on the assembly line at the local engine plant, when the teacher interrupts the class to introduce a new student.
The new kid has dusky skin and the foreign-sounding name of Pedro. He says, in an odd, lisping accent, that he hopes " ... to make many friends in America".
The other children pick on poor Pedro, because he has no money to purchase a healthy lunch of Sloppy Joes, fries and cola at the school cafeteria. Steven watches warily as Pedro sits alone and eats a strange-looking and aromatic meal that he pulls from a paper bag. The other children laugh at Pedro's lack of a lunchbox. Steven, longing to fit in, laughs along with the other children.
Things change after school, however, when the school bully pushes Steven down in the mud and threatens to beat him up if he fails to hand over his lunch money. As lunch has already been purchased and eaten (during the school cafeteria scene mentioned earlier), Steven is unable to comply. Pedro, arriving just in time, fends off the bully with his bushy moustache and giant guitar.
Steven and Pedro become best friends, and use the afternoon to go fishing at the local creek. While fishing, Pedro asks Steven if he "... would like to smoke some of the drugs ..." with him.
The camera pans left, revealing a giant sombrero-shaped UFO parked on the other side of the creek.
Cue insidious music ... Dun-dun dun!
The day after the next day ...
Mary is shopping at a nearby strip-mall, as she does everyday, when she bumps in to Pedro's mother, Margarita. Margarita asks her if she would like to visit her family's home for an exotic foreign drink called sangria and a mysterious dish called "nachos".
Mary naively agrees, and upon their arrival at the home she remarks on what a nice ranch-style house it is.
The house bears a stunning resemblance to a giant sombrero.
Cue insidious music ... Dun-dun dun!
The same day after the next day ...
William Sr. is out mowing his well-kempt lawn, as he does everyday after coming home from his vocation as a middle-manager at a branch-office of an unnamed American corporation involved in manufacturing. Confident that he has a job for life, as the unnamed American corporation for which he works will never move offshore for the cheap labor and lax environmental and worker-safety legislation, William Sr. hums and smokes his pipe as he carefully pushes the lawnmower across his flat, treeless yard.
Pausing to refill the fuel tank,[6] William Sr. is interrupted by an unexpected visit from an unexpected visitor – Pedro's father, Juan.
Juan offers to take care of the Wilson family's yard and garden for a price that's so low that William Sr. cannot refuse.
The scene closes with William Sr. relaxing in his favorite chair, watching baseball on the Philco while Juan, outside, finishes mowing the lawn, also outside.
Cue insidious music ... Dun-dun dun!
That very Saturday night
William Jr. is out with his best girl, in the family convertible on Maidenhead Ridge, chastely gazing at the stars while talking about fighting communism. His girlfriend, after a lengthy pause, tells him that she is breaking up with him so that she can "go steady" with Pedro's older brother, Carlos.
She tells him that Carlos is filled with a passion and zest for life that he lacks, as William Jr., like his father, has suppressed and buried his feelings for so long that he is emotionally detached and distant on the outside and cold and dead on the inside. Further, she says that she is madly in love with Carlos and that she's pregnant ... with Carlos's baby!
Cue insidious music ... Dun-dun dun!
Sometime later. Sunday, probably.
The camera moves in through the open doors and down the center aisle of the Protestant church that the Wilson family attends religiously. An empty space, large enough for a healthy and God-fearing family of four, can be seen on the front row of pews. The minister tries to ignore the empty space but eventually switches his sermon from one about something nice that Jesus did to one about sin, sinners and sinning. It ends with a speech[7] that was catchy enough to inspire a popular series of bumper stickers.[8]
Across the street, meanwhile, the Wilson family is hearing all about the Virgin Mary, saints, sainthood and sacred relics from someone called a "priest" in a different church.
... a Catholic church!
Cue insidious music ... Dun-dun dun!
The near future ...
The entire Wilson family is shown on the curb outside what mere days before had been their home. Living in the cardboard box in which their new refrigerator was shipped, they are destitute, penniless and completely broke. Even worse, they have no money.
Steven has turned into a beatnik, William Jr. is wearing a sneer and a leather jacket, Mary is full of wine and refried beans, and William Sr., due to lack of exercise, has wasted away to a cadaverous 165 pounds.
Pedro, Carlos and Margarita can be seen inside the Wilson's old home, trashing the interior of their new home. Juan comes out and, using Mary's favorite broom, shoos the Wilsons off of what is now his family's front yard.
In the background, literally hundreds of sombrero-shaped UFOs can be seen hovering over the suburbs. On many other front yards many other unnamed caucasian families sit forlorn; all homeless.
Cue plaintive music ... Wah-wah wah!
The end?
Over this terrible and sad scene of strife and chaos comes the pressing, authoritative tone of an announcer's monologue.
"Just look at what happened to the Wilsons when they failed to heed the warning signs of heterogeneity! Don't let this happen to your town, township or town! Keep America's melting pot full of Americans!"
Fade to black, credits roll ...
Societal impact
- The widespread popularity of this film led to the Twenteenth Amendment to the US Constitution in 1960. Commonly called the Liberty Amendment, it granted sweeping powers to all levels of the military, law enforcement and lawless enforcement to do what needed to be done to counter the threat of the tired, poor, huddled masses that yearned to breathe free. It was repealed in 1961 by the Twenteen-oneth Amendment after rich peoples' lawns turned brown, their babies proved to be unable to feed themselves and fields of strawberries went unpicked.
- This movie brought America's fear of not-Americans out into the open, leading to a dialogue between American-Americans, Latino-Americans and Latino-Mexicans who wanted to be Latino-Americans. To this day, there has been no further friction between American-Americans and the other two groups.[9]
Trivia
- Illegal Aliens from Outer Space! was written by the architect of 1954's Operation Wetback, Joseph Swing. Op Wetback returned 80,000 Mexicans living illegally in the U.S.A. to Mexico and caused between 500,000 and 800,000 more to flee. Most of these didn't return to America until at least 1955.
- An unfortunate miscommunication lead to the original theater poster having a terrifying kitten rather than the planned terrifying Mexicalian. Errors on later posters include a basketball instead of the houses and a block of cheese instead of the text. All three posters are highly prized by collectors, with mint condition examples fetching up to eight dollars at auction.
- Illegal Aliens from Outer Space!, a low budget production, saved money by filming in an upscale neighborhood in Mexico City, Mexico.
- In addition to Mexicaliens the original screenplay also had Guatamaliens and Panamaliens, but they were cut at the request of Philip Morris Inc., the majority stakeholder in Heritage Film Co., to reduce the screen time from ninety minutes to eighty-eight. This allowed the addition of a public service announcement at the start of the film. The PSA is titled When will I be old enough to smoke? and describes, in gory detail, the dangers of not smoking. It starred a young Lauren Chapin and a not-quite-as-young Billy Gray (Kathy "Kitten" Anderson and James "Bud" Anderson, respectively, from TV's Father Knows Best) as "Janey Smokesalot" and "Jimmy Smokesnone", respectively.
Footnotes
- ↑ All were born and raised south of the border: Eli in exotic Brooklyn, New York; Lee in sunny Somerville, New Jersey; and Horst near the white-sand beaches of Berlin, Germany. Olé!
- ↑ dirt, sweat and Grecian Formula, mostly
- ↑ "You've come a long way, baby!"™
- ↑ Respectable careers for women cover a wide range of occupations, from secretary to nurse, with nothing in between.
- ↑ Right behind them ...
- ↑ 101 Octane Super DoubleplusSupreme from Texaco, with 20% more tetra-ethyl lead than the competition
- ↑ "Friends, I have seen the Devil in this very town. Yea, he walks along our fair streets. He, at this very moment, is luring our nation to Hell! Satan is afoot in this town! Repent! Repent!"
- ↑ The bumper stickers were popular enough to inspire a T-shirt. The T-shirt was poorly made and too small to be popular. Plus there was just the one.
- ↑ American-Americans, Norwegian-Americans and Norwegian-Norwegians, on the other hand ...
